Sam looked up at the face with red eyes and tried to focus. She braced herself as his horrible, hateful hand once more descended toward her.
And she decided in that moment: whatever happened to her then and there, she would at least take one of his eyes out with her.
Chapter Forty-Four
“What the fuck?!” Jack roared. “Where the hell is she? Why can’t we find her?” He spun on the Warlock King who, other than Roman and Jack, was the only other king in the room. Evie was there, quietly watching from the chair behind Roman’s desk. And Chloe was there, sitting on the desk, Indian-style.
It was Roman’s study, a place he seemed to retreat to when the going got rough or he simply needed space. At the moment, the Dragon King, Arach, several werewolves, and various shifters waited in the library of one of Roman D’Angelo’s various mansions. The library was down the hall and in another wing of the house from the study, affording the five of them some privacy.
“You said this would work, Alberich!” The Shifter King was a raging storm, a towering man in black who looked like he was walking the razor’s edge. Maybe it was the eye patch that lent to the rogue-gone-mad image. Or maybe it was the aura that currently surrounded him; it was one of desperation. And desperate men did desperate things.
Roman knew where this fury was stemming from. He understood it very well. Jack was afraid for his queen. He’d been against this plan of theirs from the beginning, begging Samantha not to go through with it. He’d stopped just short of commanding her not to do it, probably because he knew damn well that attempting to command Samantha to do anything would be a very bad idea. She was the queen. Or, she would be once she accepted the position. Even now, she was more powerful than he was. And more importantly, if he began taking high-handed measures with her, it would lead them down a path he had no desire to travel. Even footing was what a true king wanted in his queen.
A gaze that was eye to eye.
But right now, all Jack could think about was getting to Sam. And at the moment, his ability to reach her had been obstructed. The black diamond half she’d been given to direct them to her location would only work if the bearer allowed it to. Which meant either Sam was keeping them from traveling to her – or the necklace had been taken from her and shattered.
In such a situation, Samantha had been instructed to use the tattoo she’d carved into her arm to transport back out of the base and to safety. She had yet to arrive, so either she’d been unwilling to use the tattoo or, and this was unfortunately more likely, she’d been unable to.
Either way, Jack Colton was a ticking time bomb.
But Roman had to be proud of Alberich and the way he was handling the situation. Clearly, the Warlock King understood Jack’s position as well, because he showed no defensive emotion and took part in no knee-jerk reactions. Instead, he calmly said, “In all fairness, that’s not exactly what I said, Jack. But we’ll get to her. I have an idea.”
At this, Jack stopped raging and stood a little straighter. The aura around him pulled in a touch, and the air felt less painful around him. His eye, which had been glowing a cold ice-blue, focused on the Warlock King with more attention than any sane man would ever want from someone like him. But again, Alberich weathered it well.
“Go on,” Jack said, his voice as icy as his gaze.
“The diamonds are reliant on will to allow passage from one to the other. But not everything works that way. Sometimes to get from A to B, all you need is two doors. Samantha still has the tattoo.” He gestured to the mark on Jack’s forearm that allowed the Shifter King to transport.
Roman saw Jack’s expression change as he glanced at it, going from distaste to hope to stark interest. And then to outright fear.
“It might have been compromised,” Alberich continued, “and in fact, I have little doubt it has been.”
He was right. Samantha O’Neill would know better than to stay in danger when she shouldn’t. Live to fight another day. Escape, bring back pertinent information, try again. That was always the wiser option, and Roman had already learned that O’Neill was wise if she was anything.
So the mark she’d made had been impaired.
“The tattoo was a last resort, and the Traitor wasn’t involved in that plan,” said Jack, his voice tight. He was stating what they were all thinking. If Samantha’s make-shift “tattoo” had been compromised, it was either an accident, Abraham Silence had cleverly deciphered the mark’s importance, or… the Entity was involved. The Entity seemed to possess the power to read people’s minds. It was even possible he’d intercepted Samantha somewhere along the way to the Hunters’ location and she’d never arrived.
This was devastating on more than one front. Not only did it mean Sam could be in the worst kind of danger. It might indicate that they were wrong about the Traitor in their midst. It might not have been the Dragon King after all. Arach might be innocent.
That was a worst case scenario. Though it wasn’t pleasant, Roman was honestly hoping Sam was simply injured in such a way as to render the tattoo temporarily inactive. Because as sick as it was, that was their best case scenario.
Jason Alberich glanced at Roman. Then he glanced at his wife and Roman’s wife. None of them said what they were all thinking. Except Jack. He was the brave one, it seemed.
“It’s the Entity, isn’t it.” It wasn’t a question. So none of them directly answered it. Alberich simply continued with his explanation of his idea. “Whether the mark has been compromised or not, it’s still there, underneath anything the Hunter – or the Entity – might have done to it. I doubt he’s healed it, after all, even though that would have been the most intelligent thing to do.”
Jack said nothing. So Alberich went on. “Obviously you have one just like it. And the two of you are most definitely linked. Hence, Door A and Door B.”
Jack’s expression how held a glimmer of hope. He knew where Alberich was going before the warlock finished. But Alberich finished anyway.
“Rather than use the two halves of the diamond to transport to her location, with a little tweaking and a lot of combined power – we can use the two marks.”
Chapter Forty-Five
There was a voice in her head, harsh and unforgiving. It was telling her to get up, shift into the biggest and baddest thing she could imagine, and tear the Hunter leader apart molecule by molecule. He’d killed her parents, after all.
It isn’t the same man though, she told the voice. The Hunter leader wasn’t human any longer. It’s the Entity, it reminded her.
So she reminded it back. All the more reason to kick his ass.
“Okay, does it,” she managed to hiss through her painfully clenched teeth. They were clamped so tight, she was probably cracking them. She’d done that before, in the cold, in the winter… in the streets. She knew how much it could hurt before the tooth sealed up again.
Sealed up again.
That’s it! she thought. A glimmer of hope gave her a heap of strength, and she pushed herself back up, using her good arm to aggressively knock the Hunter leader’s hand out of the way as it descended toward her. “Don’t fucking touch me, douchebag.”
Abraham Silence stilled. He actually looked surprised for a second, red eyes and all. That surprise gave Sam even more strength. The pain from her arm was receding to the background of her consciousness. Blessed, blessed recession. She focused her body’s energy – half on her arm and separating those two wounds, and half on getting to her feet and taking on the Entity.
“In fact,” she continued as she got her legs under her and slid along the wall behind her to stand up. “Don’t ever touch me again.”
She felt her eyes burning, and the world took on the same reddish tint it had taken on in Jack Colton’s living room when he’d told her about her parents and the fire that had taken them from her. She knew they were red. As red as the man’s before her.
“Do the Hunters know you’re actually the Entity?” she asked, buying herself time. She needed to
pick the right creature to shift into. She needed the burn on her arm to heal while the cuts that made up her tattoo stayed behind. She needed to figure out how to get to Walker.
“Nice try, magishifter. But I can hear your head spinning. You have big plans for such a little girl.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
The Hunter smiled. “The Hunters follow blindly. The brainwashed always do. I’m not sure it matters to them what lies under this skin. So long as I wear a visage they are familiar and comfortable with.”
Behind him, where Walker and the other Hunters had remained, there was a stir. Sam glanced in their direction and caught the uncertain expressions on the Hunters’ faces. She agreed that Hunters were brainwashed, but maybe their leader’s “visage” was a little less familiar or comfortable to them than the Entity thought.
The Entity, perhaps reading her mind again or simply following her gaze, glanced over his shoulder. As they spoke, Sam could feel the burn on her arm reluctantly fading. It throbbed less, each pulse of pain growing smaller in its circle of reach than the last.
Silence slowly turned back to face her. “Enough of this.” He stepped forward, again raising his hand as if he were simply going to reach out and touch her. But this time, his shadow elongated, his form seemed to grow taller and slimmer, and that aura she’d felt earlier grew so strong, it buzzed like live electrical wires.
Sam wasted no time, shifting at once. Light surrounded her and flashed. In those milliseconds, she felt the poison from her fangs move through her body and into her tail, her fangs became more pronounced, and her torso spread out and grew fur, and massive bat wings sprouted from her back. The manticore. That should take him down a few pegs.
The shift had helped her heal a bit, as well. Now she knew the tattoo on her arm was at least decipherable below the burn the Entity had left.
But she didn’t have time to transport. Instead, she lashed out at once, going for the hand he’d so graciously extended toward her. Again, her fangs sank deep, and this time, she beat her giant wings, rising in the arena and sending dust and debris flying. As she rose, her fangs ripped through the flesh of the Entity’s hand, slicing tendons and muscles in half. He roared in pain, but her attack didn’t slow.
Her tail came next, a scorpion’s tail long and curled and dripping with deadly poison. It whipped around her body like a cat-of-nine-tails. The stinger gleamed in the low light from the lanterns the Hunters had lit around the arena. The Entity glanced up a split second before the stinger struck, and backpedaled when it targeted his chest. It hit home, digging in several inches before Sam instinctively released her poison.
Again, Abraham Silence cried out in pain, and for the first time since she’d arrived, Samantha was beginning to feel she might make it through this. She might actually win.
And then Silence’s red eyes began to flicker like actual flames. His form darkened, as if he’d been cast into deep shadow. He grew even taller and even thinner, giving Sam the impression of a walking shadow – or the Slenderman.
“I said,” hissed the Entity, “enough of this.”
He raised both hands then, one severely damaged and bleeding, the other intact. From his outstretched palms shot a bolt of pure, dark force. She saw it coming a heartbeat before it struck Sam in her chest, landing as dead center as her tail had in the Entity’s chest a moment earlier.
Sam felt it wash over her like cold water, shocking and disorienting, but there was no pain. Instead, she lost focus of what was around her and went tumbling end over end. Without meaning to, she shifted, and had returned to her human form by the time she felt her side hit the wall, her neck snap to the side, and her head smack into the wall a second later.
Stars swam in her vision; everything else was blurred and indistinguishable. But beyond the blurriness and the vision, there was sound, and it had changed. No longer was there the silence of Hunters watching and a shifter whose vocal chords had been burned out. Now, there was shouting.
Behind the swimming motes of dust before her, Sam also began to see flashes of light, bright and swirling. She recognized them at once as portals. Oh gods! she thought helplessly. Let them be a good sign and not a worse one!
The shouts, curses, and sounds of battle that were rising all around her now would lend weight to the former rather than the latter, and that gave Sam further strength. She slid down the wall, but caught herself on her own hands and knees and began to rise. Before she had completely stood up, she heard foot steps running toward her.
“Sam!”
That sound would be recognizable anywhere. His arms around her followed the welcome voice of Jack Colton, and his embrace was warm. It was also the most welcome sensation she had ever experienced. “Jack,” she whispered back, not quite at the point of full-on speech. The blast the Entity had struck her with had acted rather like a viscous net, wrapping around her and lingering, cold and strength-sapping.
But she was recovering quickly enough to take note of what was happening all around her. Several men had come through portals. The Entity was in hand-to-hand combat with Roman D’Angelo. There were werewolves shifting from human to wolf and back again, and shifters were doing the same. More Hunters had appeared, filling up the gaps and evening out the numbers. Most impressive of all, however, were the dragons.
The arena was large enough to house several of them, and their wings batted at the space around them with tremendous force, even sending several of the stacked-up tires at the center of the room rolling down the pile and across the filthy floor.
“How did you –”
“Your tattoo,” said Jack. She looked down because he had taken hold of her arm and was staring at the dual markings, one carefully carved tattoo, and one fading burn mark. She could feel the tension coming from him. He was wound tight, his face hard, his eye burning blue fire. “Clever girl,” he said softly. “Brave, strong girl.”
Sam pulled her arm from his grip and took hold of his face so that he would look at her. She held him tight. “I’m okay, Jack. We have to help the others now. Walker needs our help!”
Chapter Forty-Six
Jack’s eye burned into her, but he seemed to come out of himself, out of his inner rage and back into the present. He nodded, just once, and helped her move away from the wall. She took the chance to get a better look at what was transpiring.
Within a few short seconds, she took it all in.
The Entity, Abraham Silence, was already in the midst of a wondrous display of clashing offensive and defensive magic between himself and the king of the Thirteen Kings, Roman D’Angelo. Roman was a vampire, and as such, he was a warlock. Inherent sorcery coursed from his body and into his enemy, and vice versa. All around them, the ground became scorched, tires melted and people scrambled to get out of the way. And yet, D’Angelo looked as though he were pulling every last ounce of power from himself to pour into his enemy, while the Entity looked unruffled. Bored, even.
Behind them, as Sam looked on and processed what she was seeing, Evelynne D’Angelo’s eyes began to glow and she raised her hands, no doubt preparing to aid her husband in his battle.
Further down the arena, two dragons took on half a dozen Hunters who were pulling automatic weapons. Only seconds had passed since the portals had opened, and thus far, no one had fired a shot, but now Jack turned back to Sam and shoved her to the ground. “Get down!”
A barrage of tat-tat-tat weapon fire lit up the arena with light and sound, and a new, fresh spike of real fear tore through her. Bullets from automatic weapons were so easy to fall to. Even a werewolf couldn’t heal from them quickly enough before the eighth or ninth bullet knocked them out, and the shooter moved in to kill them for good.
“You have to take them out first!” Sam yelled, hoping Jack could hear her over the noise. He needed to get to the shooters, and fast.
“Stay down!” he yelled. He must have understood what she meant, because she felt him leave her side, and a few moments later the gunshots
stopped.
Sam scrambled to her feet, bringing up dust with her. She swiped her hair out of her face and peered toward the end of the room where the armed Hunters had been firing. They stood in a semi-circle, their guns half-raised. They were all turned toward Jack, listening intently as he spoke to them.
Even from this distance, Sam could tell he was using his power. He had gotten into their heads, was making them believe they knew him, and was controlling their actions through this magic-induced trust.
Sam glanced up at the hovering dragons that the Hunters had just been firing at. One of the massive beasts had been hit, his wing torn nearly in two, and he was tumbling now toward the wall on the opposite end of the arena. He was a blue dragon, and what looked like blue-white water vapor and ice crystals formed around him as he fell.
The other two were landing, one green dragon, one yellow. The yellow dragon’s scales looked like butterscotch dipped in honey, and it was the same size as the blue dragon. The green dragon shimmered like emerald touched with rainbow dust, and he was the largest of the three, enormous and glorious. Just as the blue dragon was surrounded by an aura of cold, the green seemed surrounded by vapor that warped the air like heat. Sam knew instinctively that the gaseous substance was poisonous.
She turned from the dragons to the Entity, wanting to gauge where everything and everyone was.
In the few seconds since she’d last looked on, Silence seemed to have at least temporarily defeated the D’Angelo family – not just Roman, but Evelynne as well. Both powerful vampires lay motionless on the cement floor. It was an alarming thing to see.
Now Abraham Silence, whose form wavered between the strange, Slenderman-styled visage and that of the Hunter leader’s more normal appearance, was being surrounded by werewolves and shifters. Enormous cats of all kinds and wolves so large they nearly appeared dire spread around the Entity in a wide, careful, but menacing circle.