“He didn’t say anything to me about his plans,” I told him, looking up into his face. “I mean, he ranted about some things, but nothing that would hint at where he’d be stashing a collection of witches.”
Warin sighed. “I will make inquiries. But you must understand, getting answers at this stage may take a while.”
I closed my eyes. “And that’s time they might not have.”
Warin didn’t answer me, but he covered our joined hands with his free one.
I sat, thinking. Mostly I thought of what Raven and Joana were going through. The pain they must be in, and the terror. I thought too of Dennis, of his betrayal, not just where I was concerned. He had betrayed all of us.
We’d trusted him. He’d spent months, if not years, cultivating that trust. All so he could take advantage of it in the end. Every kind word, every smile, every morning where he brought donuts and coffee to the shop—it was all a long-con. Our whole relationship had been based on nothing but deception.
Was this why Warin and his brethren hated witches? Was Dennis an outlier, or a symptom of a more systemic problem running throughout the witching world? It wasn’t as if he was the first witch I’d run into who’d tried to harm me. There were the other skinwalkers, of course, and Kevin was an absolute dick, and then there was—
My train of thought came to a sudden halt, and I sat bolt upright again. Warin made a noise of concern, but he needn’t have worried, because I’d had an epiphany. I knew exactly where my friends had been taken.
I turned to him, clutching his hands. “The slaughterhouse. Where everything started. Where I met that witch who tried to make me tell him about you. That’s where they are, Warin. I’m sure of it.”
Warin regarded me for several long moments, his eyes searching mine. The level of my certainty and determination must have been reflected there, because at length he nodded firmly, gripping my hands right back.
“Then that is where we will go, my love.”
* * *
The first time I’d arrived at the slaughterhouse, I’d gotten a bad feeling. Some sixth sense had twanged like a guitar string pulled too tight, and all I’d wanted to do was run.
Now, that feeling was amplified a thousandfold. Roy pulled us up into the back lot at the same time Warin and his Guardsmen were slipping in through the back, as silent and dark as the shadows.
“There they go,” Roy said, his eyes fixed on Carina heading up the back. As second-in-command, it was her job to both protect the other Guards and the Night Lord himself. “This is bound to get messy.”
It was already a mess—the skinwalkers had made sure of that. Nothing they’d done had been clean. Whoever was pulling their strings might have intended to be more subtle than this, but if that was the case, they’d picked the wrong minions to do their bidding. They were sloppy. Forces of sheer destruction. Sure, Dennis had been calculating, to some degree, but in the end, it seemed they all went the same way: absolutely bat-shit crazy.
“How do you think they’ll do it?” I asked Roy. “I mean… you’ve seen them do this before, right? How does it usually go?”
Roy shifted, leather seat creaking in protest. “It’s usually a massacre. Occasionally, a vamp gets hit, maybe even taken out, but… for the most part, what you have to look forward to is a lot of blood. And it ain’t usually theirs.”
I was both disturbed and comforted by that fact. But the skinwalkers had left us no choice. If there’d been any other way, I would’ve been the first to champion it. It wasn’t like I hadn’t defied Warin before, and even Aleric, who at times was so much more terrifying than his brother was.
But they’d tried to kill me, over and over again, and now they had my friends—true innocents in this fight. It had to end here. Now. After what they’d done to me, I was almost sorry I couldn’t be a part of it.
Or maybe I could. Not that I wanted to be in the middle of the actual fray, but…
I unbuckled my seatbelt and leaned forward. “A massacre sounds like a pretty effective distraction, doesn’t it?”
Roy narrowed his eyes at me over his shoulder. “What are you on about?”
“I mean…” I nibbled my lip again. “I mean that if the Guard is busy fighting the skinwalkers, and the skinwalkers are busy fighting the Guard, then maybe we could sneak in and free the coven. Get them out of harm’s way.”
He stared. “Have you lost your mind? Do you know what Warin would do to me if you got hurt—if he came back to this car and so much as a hair on your pretty little head were out of place? No, Liv. It’s a bad idea. Too much could go wrong. I can’t promise I’d be able to protect you, and since that’s my job…”
I opened my door before he could lock it, squirming out of reach as he lunged for me. Roy was big and strong, but I had agility on my side.
“Hey!” he barked at a stage whisper. “Get back here!”
“I’m going,” I told him through the open car door. “One way or the other. Either you’ll be there to protect me as best you can, or you won’t.”
I slammed the door shut before Roy could sputter a reply. Halfway up the back stairs, I heard gravel crunching behind me, as well as a low, furious grumbling about how maybe it was time for him to retire and settle down.
The door was already open. The Guard had seen to that. Carefully, I opened it, and was overwhelmed by the stench of decaying meat.
I gagged, hard, pressing a hand to my mouth and nose. Roy put his hands on my shoulders and said into my ear, “If you’re gonna do this, you’re gonna have to be prepared to see and smell a lot worse.”
I swallowed the next urge to retch and nodded weakly. Then I pressed through the door, puddles of standing water tinged with blood sloshing beneath my feet as Roy and I crept into the dark.
We began our journey in the chamber I’d visited before, the one where the slaughterhouse workers hung and bled the dead animals. Several carcasses were dangling from meathooks still, abandoned for other pursuits, it seemed. I pulled the collar of my shirt up over my nose, content to inhale the scent of my own fear, rather than the stench of old death around me. If Roy was bothered by it, he showed no signs except to pull his gun from the back of his pants and click the safety off.
A low, eerie hum echoed around us. So did every one of our footsteps. And, at least in my own ears, my heartbeat.
“Let me go first into the next room,” Roy demanded as we approached the hall. I nodded to him. I’d let him take point. Even though I could feel my magic thrumming beneath my skin, you could never go wrong hiding behind a man with a gun.
We didn’t have to go far, though. As Roy scanned the offices for signs of life, a weak, rhythmic thumping drew my attention to the boiler room.
I tugged on Roy’s sleeve and pointed. He listened, then pushed ahead of me, wrapped his hand around the knob, and tugged it free from the door as easily as I might pull a ticket for the deli counter.
The door swung out. Two familiar faces, and three unknown, stared up at us, eyes wide.