I See You (Oracle 2) (27 page)

Beau stumbled back, knocking into the table in the center of the room and dropping Ettie. She scrambled away from him, staying low. He pawed at his face, trying to clear his mouth and nose of the drug.

He stared at Ettie … so utterly betrayed.

“It’s okay,” she cooed. “I gave you a bit of Cy’s painkiller. You’ll like it. Who doesn’t want to feel invulnerable?”

Beau stumbled back again, groping to find a handhold on the table but knocking it over instead. He staggered to the side until he was touching the wall, pressing his hand against the painted concrete to hold himself upright.

I’d seen him in almost that exact position in the vision. Though the room was still too tidy, so more chaos was to come before Ettie died.

“Almost time,” I whispered.

Ettie straightened from her protective crouch, looking at me. “Now you,” she said as she searched the counter, then found a needle and syringe. “If you are who you say you are … well, I’ll be able to come up with a whole new line. Crimson sight, maybe. If it works, university test scores are going to skyrocket.”

Beau shook his head, trying to clear it.
 

I kept my eyes on him and Ettie as she crossed toward me.

“Stand still, little oracle,” Ettie cooed.

I punched her in the gut. ‘Go for the soft parts,’ Beau had always said.

Ettie bent over with a whoosh of air.
 

“Yeah, I’m not that kind of girl,” I said. I slapped her across the face as she tried to jab me with the needle. It was a weak move on her part, allowing me to grab her wrist and twist it until she dropped the syringe.

I crushed the needle underneath my sneaker, then kicked it away.

“You think you’re an Adept, eh?” I asked. I’d never been as angry as I was right now. Had never hated anyone so much in my life. “Let’s test that theory.”

I grabbed Ettie by the ears, getting two fistfuls of hair in the process. Then I slammed her brain with my oracle magic.

She screamed.

Then she screamed some more.

And I saw … nothing. A vast, gray, meaningless nothing.

Something hard and cool pressed against the back of my neck. “Let her go, skank,” Cy said from behind me. “Or Ettie will be collecting your blood as it pumps out of your brain.”

I let go of Ettie. She stumbled away from me, wide-eyed and fearful. Finally.

Beau straightened up from the far wall.

“Brains don’t bleed like that, actually.” I slowly raised my hands.

Ignoring me, Cy circled around, dragging the gun he held against my head as he did so. He was dressed in his go-to white wifebeater, though this one had been recently washed. And he was amped, even more so than he’d been the other day. His attention was on Beau, though, rather than me. He held a stun gun in his other hand.

“Give me some of the werewolf shit,” Cy said to Ettie. “And the stuff you made with Beau’s blood, not your mother’s.”

“I … I …” Ettie was looking at her dad as if she was shocked to see him with a gun to someone’s head. Or maybe she was simply still overwhelmed by whatever my magic had done to her mind. “I haven’t processed Beau’s —”

“Then get to it,” Cy said. His arm jerked. He jabbed the muzzle of the gun against my temple hard enough that I hissed in pain.

Beau started to growl.

Ettie backed away to the counter. “Dad —”

“Ettie,” Cy interrupted. “There’s a sorcerer in the building. I got him …”

My stomach bottomed out.

“But I can’t just kill him right off. There’s another one with that cunt werewolf. I called Byron for backup —”

“What?” Ettie screeched.

“We can’t contain this on our own now,” Cy said.

“We already made a deal with him for product distribution. He’s already squeezing us —”

“We need enforcement now.”

“But Dad —”

“Give me the shit.” Cy shoved his Taser into the waistband of his jeans and jabbed his empty hand impatiently in Ettie’s direction. His gun shook against my temple as he did so.

Ettie picked up a single bag of what I assumed was crimson wolf.

“And the other.”

Ettie hesitated. But then she crossed to the shelving unit to open a box on the middle shelf. Beau took a step closer to her.

“Stay where you are, you little bastard.” Cy grabbed my arm and gave me a shake. “I might have made a deal with the sorcerer for the slit’s life, but I’ll kill her just to spite you.”

I locked gazes with Beau. The idea that Blackwell had negotiated some sort of deal with Cy didn’t surprise me in the least. Cy had probably incapacitated the sorcerer with his stun gun, then locked him up somewhere. Even so, nothing would hold Blackwell at bay for long. I was also completely sure that the sorcerer didn’t keep deals with idiots.

Ettie grabbed a second baggie from the cardboard box, then crossed back to Cy with it and the first bag. “A deal with a sorcerer now? We’re already too exposed and —”

“Just take her blood,” Cy snapped. “Keep Beau here under the influence of the silver peace shit. I’ll hand her over to the sorcerer and he’ll walk away.”

Beau snorted. He still looked dazed, though not as much as before.

“One vial isn’t going to be enough,” Ettie said. “If we’re trying to create a product line —”

“One is all you goddamn get,” Cy snarled. “If you hadn’t dealt Byron in and taken blood from the werewolf, they might have all walked away.”

“They’re here to save me, actually,” Ettie said. “From you.”

Cy didn’t respond. I couldn’t see his face. But I could see Beau, whose eyes narrowed at whatever he was picking up from his stepdad.
 

Ettie looked dejected for a moment. Then she shook it off, turning to grab another syringe from the counter.

“Mind tricks,” Cy said to her back.

“Okay.” She didn’t look at her father.

A hole blew through the interior wall opposite the windows. Magic and concrete exploded everywhere. Heedless of the gun to my head, I dropped to the floor, seeing Beau do the same across from me.
 

Ettie was slammed forward against the steel counter.
 

Cy attempted to stand against the onslaught, but his gun was knocked from his hand by debris.

Then two sorcerers and a werewolf burst into the room. Kandy darted across the lab toward Ettie. Blackwell and the marshal came for Cy, who dove on the ground in an attempt to retrieve his gun.

Correction. Blackwell came for me.
 

The marshal flicked his magical handcuffs at Cy. The cuffs streaked through the air, coiling around Cy’s wrists and yanking him to the ground. But not before Cy got his hands on his gun and trained the weapon on Henry.

Beau straightened. Concrete dust crumbled off him as he yelled a warning to Kandy. “Watch out.”

Too late.

Ettie, who’d been slumped over the counter from the blast, pivoted as Kandy reached her. She grabbed a massive fistful of baggies in a single swipe, maybe a half-dozen or more. Then she smashed them all into the green-haired werewolf’s face.

Kandy grabbed Ettie by the neck, lifting her off her feet and shaking her. Somehow, even while being throttled, Ettie managed to pop some of the baggies open with the force of her attack.

“Put her down,” Cy yelled. He was still lying on the ground with his gun pointed at the marshal.

Then he shot Kandy in the back without further warning.

Henry kicked the weapon out of Cy’s still-cuffed hands. A split second too late.

Kandy arched back, dropping Ettie and stumbling away from the counter. Powdered red crystal coated her eyes, nose, and mouth. Even her neck and shoulders were dusted in crimson wolf — a drug made from her own magic and somehow bound with Ettie’s blood.

It was a massive overdose. Plus, the werewolf had just been shot in the back.

“No. No. No!” Beau held his arms out wide, as if to catch Kandy if she fell, though he was too far away to do so.

Ettie fell to her knees, coughing and holding her throat.

A monster ripped through Kandy’s skin. Literally.

I screamed, completely involuntarily. Even in my visions, I’d never seen anything so disturbingly horrific as the furred and clawed monster that emerged from Kandy’s body.

Blackwell shoved me behind him, yelling, “Marshal,” as he did so.

The monster, which I belatedly realized was some sort of uber-terrifying version of Kandy’s half-form, threw its head back and howled. Its long, disjointed snout scraped against the concrete ceiling, which was easily nine feet high. Its jaws were filled with jagged five-inch teeth.

The howl froze us all in place, like prey. It took every other sound with it, deafening everyone in the room.
 

Beau recovered first. He dashed forward, wrapping his arms around Kandy. He appeared to be attempting to talk her down. I wasn’t sure, because I still couldn’t hear anything.

Kandy tossed him off her like he weighed nothing. He tumbled back through the destroyed concrete wall and out of my sight. Then she went for Ettie, who threw her arms over her head and screamed.

Before Kandy could chomp Ettie’s head off with her massive, misaligned jaws, something snapped around her maw — the marshal’s handcuffs. But they had somehow widened to encompass the thickness of Kandy’s elongated snout.

She stumbled back, pawing at her face. She was gouging herself with her own claws, rivers of blood flowing down her jaw and throat.

“Stop her! Stop her!” someone was screaming.

Me.

I was the one screaming.

My hearing was back. Everything was still seriously muffled, but I could hear.

Still blocking me from advancing, Blackwell was murmuring something under his breath. Pools of darkness were forming in his hands.

The marshal circled Kandy. She utterly dwarfed him and everything else in the room, yet he was still attempting to get close to her.

Beau rose out of the rubble of the concrete wall behind the deranged werewolf. He had transformed into his own version of half-beast, half-human. He was about a foot and a half shorter than Kandy’s beast-form, and covered in short orange fur. His face was a hideous mix of beast and human, though his double fangs were longer than Kandy’s canines, and his jaw aligned properly.

Golden magic swirled around the bracelets Kandy still wore, which had grown to accommodate her new size. Then she snapped the marshal’s cuffs.

Henry looked absolutely dumbfounded. By his reaction, I surmised that his handcuffs were supposed to be unbreakable.

Dropping the cuffs at her feet, Kandy lowered her head in Henry’s direction. Her wolf ears pressed flat against her skull. Her fur held not even a hint of green.

“Her eyes are bleeding,” I called out. “Like Cy’s in my vision.”

“Henry,” Blackwell said warningly.

“Just tell me when.” Henry was still facing Kandy, holding his hands to the side in a nonthreatening gesture.

“Now.”

Henry sidestepped. Kandy swiveled her massive head to follow his movement.

Blackwell threw his spell. Blue-black orbs of magic flew across the room, hitting the uber-werewolf, then spiraling around her like thick ropes. She screamed in pain, the sound of which was slightly more human than before but still terrifying.

Again, heedless of how her five-inch claws tore into her, she shredded the magic like it was a cozy down blanket and she was wielding a wickedly sharp box cutter.

“It’s the cuffs,” I shouted. “Her cuffs are dragon magic.”

“Beau, Henry,” Blackwell barked. “We’re going to have to let the drug in her system burn off. Back out slowly. We’ll contain her in the building.”

Blackwell pivoted, grabbing my arm and hauling me out of the lab and through the doors into the empty room beyond.

“We can’t just leave,” I cried.

Kandy howled again.

I dug in my heels, looking back over my shoulder.

In the lab, Beau was grappling with Kandy again, drawing her attention away from the marshal as Henry darted forward to retrieve his fallen handcuffs.

“No!” I screamed.

Kandy threw Beau off her. Then at the exact moment the marshal’s side was exposed to her, she latched onto his torso and chomped down.

Cy had crawled over to Ettie and was attempting to drag her out of the lab while everyone was distracted by Kandy.

The rest of us stared in horror as the uber-werewolf lifted Henry in her jaws and shook him like a rat. Like she was a terrier trying to snap his neck.

Beau roared.

Every piece of glass in the lab that wasn’t already broken exploded.

I clapped my hands over my ears. Cy and Ettie stumbled, falling to the ground just behind us. Even Blackwell covered his ears and hunched against the challenge of an alpha predator.

Kandy froze.

Then she dropped Henry at her feet.

The uber-werewolf slowly pivoted to face off with Beau. She snapped her teeth in his direction, her snarls punctuated by bubbling blood at the edges of her jaw. She deliberately widened her stance, one massive clawed foot at a time. Then she spread her heavily muscled arms, ready to accept Beau’s challenge.

“We’re going to have to kill her,” Blackwell said.

He stepped forward.

I grabbed his arm. “What? No!”

He shook me off. “It’s Beau or her,” he snarled at me. “You pick, then.”

I stared at him in utter disbelief. “No,” I said again, looking over his shoulder to watch Beau and Kandy as they circled each other. The lab was barely large enough for them to stay just out of striking range. “She’s here to save him.”

“He’s too young,” the sorcerer said. “Inexperienced. Struggling to hold his form. She’s going to rip him apart.”

Kandy lunged, driving into Beau. Her scythe-like claws caught in his ribs.
 

Something cracked. Beau screamed.

I shouted to Blackwell, “Do it! Oh God, do it.”

The sorcerer pivoted away from me, already calling up his magic.
 

Then Cy jabbed him in the side of the neck with his stun gun.

Blackwell’s eyes rolled back in his head. His jaw stretched into a scream he couldn’t vocalize. He unleashed a half-formed spell against Cy, but then went down.