Zoey Avenger (Incubatti Series Book 2) (19 page)

Silence. The floodlights of the building flashed out, and the van behind them turned off.

Zoey and Vikki exchanged a look. “Weird. You feel that?” Zoey asked. “We can’t hear or feel the power plant next door.”

“What did Chrissy do?”

“Electromagnetic pulse bomb or something. But she set it off across the river in Virginia at Site Y. It can’t be that strong.” Zoey pulled the ear bud free and replaced it. “You got anything?”

“No. If I had to say …” Vikki twisted to look behind them at the dark van. “I’d say she might’ve misjudged the power of her little toy and taken out everything around DC.”

Zoey bit back a laugh, thrilled something was going her way for once.

The door to the facility burst open, and a team of six succubae bolted out, hurrying two women in white lab coats in their midst. The scientists had their arms full, one with a laptop and the other with files. The last of their escort paused to push the door black into place.

Zoey and Vikki watched them dart into the forest.

“Where are they going?” Zoey murmured. The area was isolated, a good two miles from the nearest housing division and five miles from the closest gas station. “Wonder if they know they’re walking.”

“Who gives a shit. That’s the distraction we need, right?” Vikki grunted and shifted forward.

“Yeah.” Zoey low crawled out from under the brush. She and Vikki crept across the moonlit field towards the warehouse. Tiff and Ginny emerged from the forest opposite Zoey’s side of the clearing. She signaled them closer.

On the surface, the warehouse appeared innocuous enough with no visible security aside from cameras at each corner and a keypad entrance.

“Hey, V,” Ginny whispered as they neared the entrance. She and Tiff lined up on one side, weapons in hand, while Zoey and Vikki paused at the other.

Vikki lifted her chin in silent greeting.

The door was open. Zoey eyed the lock. It was electronic. Any other time, she would’ve been suspicious. Whatever Chrissy had done, it knocked out electricity as far as twenty miles outside DC.

Sheathing one knife, she opened the door and stepped into the dark interior. She pulled a flashlight with a red lens from the utility belt at her waist and flipped it on, quickly scouring the large bay for attackers.

It was completely empty, aside from a lift platform in the center, surrounded by a white railing.

“This seems too easy,” Tiff muttered.

“This place could be rigged with lasers normally,” Ginny pointed out. “Nothing works after an EMP strike.”

“We probably have less than twenty minutes,” Vikki said, striding towards the platform.

“Tiff, stand guard here,” Zoey said. “We’ll use old school means of warning if someone comes back. Just yell.” She and Ginny joined Vikki on the platform. “Wait a minute. This thing isn’t going to work either.” Disgruntled by the realization, she shone the red light onto the platform. “Vikki, pull that end up.”

Together, they slid titanium blades in the seams of the platform and pried up the cover covering the motor beneath. Setting it off the platform, Zoey assessed the amount of space between the motor and the steel guides beneath.

“We can fit,” she decided and turned off the flashlight. Squeezing between the platform and motor, she paused to glare at her lower belly. She hadn’t been eating frequently enough to gain weight; she also hadn’t been working out like she used to. Running and planning took up most of her time. “Am I getting fat, Vikki?” she complained, pushing the small pooch of her belly down.

“No, but you’re still short.”

Accustomed to being teased for being small compared to every other succubus and half-succubus in their society, Zoey mumbled a retort, focused on finding a landing for her foot and waited until it brushed one of the guards. She crept towards it, her grip secure on the platform. She wrapped her legs around it. Aware they had little time to get in, grab what they could and get out, she released the platform and slid down the metal tube, barely grabbing it with a hand before flipping over backwards.

“I’m good! Next!” she called. Lighting a flare, she dropped it to double check how far down they had to go. “Looks like a thirty feet drop, so don’t slip.”

She scampered down the elevator shaft and landed a moment later at the bottom. Vikki dropped the last eight feet to land beside her. Together, they jammed knives into the elevator doorway and pulled the doors open.

Zoey leapt up to the linoleum floor. The flare illuminated the area outside the elevator, and battery-operated backup lights glowed throughout the hallway running to the right and left.

It was silent. The corridor was lined with five doors on one side and three on the other.

“You want right?” Zoey asked Vikki as she hopped up beside her.

“Sure.”

Ginny joined them. “I’ll stay here and relay messages. Holler if you need anything.”

Zoey started to the left, senses picking up nothing, not even Vikki and Ginny. The halls had some sort of magic absorbing the traces of sex energy every member of the supernatural societies normally left.

As with the main entrance, the first door she came to had an electronic lock and palm reader, both of which were disabled. She pulled the door open and looked around inside at the massive lab that ran the length of the hallway. Her flashlight reflected off of metal and glass, scientific technology she was unfamiliar with and workstations.

“Shit,” she grumbled, entering. With no electricity, they managed to get in easily – but couldn’t check computers to see if there was any information they’d want off them.

She took in the entire lab, counting twenty workstations with computers, before her eyes fell to an office on the far side. Trotting through quiet rows of tables and counters, she nudged the door open with her hip and entered. A heavy safe was in one corner, a filing cabinet in the other.

The safe was bolted with a manual lock, the file cabinet filled with neatly filed paperwork. A quick glance through them indicated they were administrative in type, many of which had to do with budgeting.

Growing frustrated, she went to the desk and yanked out drawers, searching for anything portable that might contain information she needed. There was a laptop in one drawer and two thumb drives in a second. She grabbed all three, tucking the computer into the bag at her back and the drives into cargo pockets.

Leaving the lab, she checked her watch and trotted to the first of the two doors on the opposite side of the hall. The door to the first was open, and she quickly evaluated the vacant room. The back half appeared to be a server room while the front was storage.

“Not enough time,” she said under her breath with a curse.

“Z?” Vikki called from down the hall.

“Nothing! You?”

“Nope.”

Zoey went to the second room and closed the door after a glance. “Fucking break room. Tell me you have something, Vikki!”

“I think I do.”

The odd note in Vikki’s voice drew both Zoey and Ginny. She stood inside one doorway, flashlight on the form at the center of the room.

“Ethan,” Zoey said, frowning. She approached the glass wall of the cell.

Declan’s father was drugged. He appeared to be awake but dazed, lying strapped to a hospital bed staring at the ceiling.

“What’d they do?” Ginny asked, shifting her weight between her feet. “He’s not even reading as strong as a Cambion.”

“They dulled his magic for sure,” Zoey agreed. “If Olivia can do this, why does she want us?”

“Did you find anything?” Ginny asked.

“I don’t know. I couldn’t exactly turn on the computers to see what’s on them,” Zoey pointed out. “I grabbed a laptop and a thumb drives.” She tried the door separating them from the incubus Councilmember. It was secured still. She tapped the glass. “Bullet proof.”

Vikki whipped out a lock picking kit. Zoey held the flashlight for her.

“Have you ever thought about talking to Declan about why he cheated?” she asked.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Zoey demanded, astonished as much by the question as her friend’s odd timing. “Did they start brainwashing people now too?”

“Hold that shit still!” Vikki snapped.

“I swear when this is over, I’m telling Liam you’re pregnant so he can drag you off to some cabin in the woods. When you’re normal, you can come back.”

“Where are you getting this shit?”

The lock clicked, and Vikki pushed the door open.

Just then, the lights overhead went on. An alarm blared down the hall.

“Guys!” Tiff’s shout was muffled by the distance.

“Go.” Zoey nudged Ginny towards the door. “He looks heavy.” She crossed to the hospital bed. It was nailed to the floor, dashing her hope of rolling him to the elevator.

Vikki tapped his cheek.

Ethan’s eyes slid to her, but he didn’t appear able to focus.

Zoey sliced the straps binding him. “Ethan?” she called, leaning to peer into his features. “Can you understand me?”

He nodded slowly once.

“Can you move?”

“Z, we’ve got a problem,” Ginny said, reappearing in the doorway. “Comms are back up. They’re blocked down here, but Tiff said all hell is breaking loose. She said the Sucubatti are undergoing lockdown procedures.”

Zoey and Vikki exchanged a look. “We gotta hurry.” Lockdown procedures involved full deployment of the Halfling and succubae security forces to every property of importance. Within twenty minutes, the underground bunker would be crawling with forty members of the Sucubatti.

“C’mon, Ethan,” Zoey grunted. She and Vikki hefted his upper body off the bed. “V, I don’t think he’s gonna be able to walk.”

Tiff shouted down the shaft. Ginny darted down the hallway once more to check in with her.

Zoey and Vikki helped the large, muscular incubus off the bed. His body weight almost pulled them to the ground. Bracing herself, Zoey glanced up as Ginny returned.

“I gotta clear the way,” Ginny said, drawing her knife.

“Gin, if we don’t make it up, take off,” Zoey told her.

“No way.”

“Yes way!” Zoey shifted Ethan and tugged off her backpack, dropping the thumb drives into it. “Take these to Chrissy and follow the backup plan.”

“What backup plan?” Vikki asked.

“The one where I stay here.”

“What? No!”

Ginny frowned.

“It’s only until I can confront Olivia. Besides, if I’m trapped down here, I can’t kill or kidnap anyone,” Zoey reasoned. “Gin, go!”

The tall brunette left reluctantly.

“Or Olivia will brainwash you one last time,” Vikki pointed out.

“That won’t happen,” Zoey snapped without feeling assured at all of her words. “Just help me get him to the lift!”

They struggled to carry him, the blaring alarm making Zoey flinch as they strode beneath it.

“Zoey!” Ginny called long before they’d made it to the elevator. “We gotta go! Now!”

Zoey glanced at Vikki and then at Ethan.

“Go,” Ethan managed in a hoarse whisper. “I’m … fine.”

“My ass,” Vikki responded.

“No, he’s right,” Zoey said. “You need to leave, Vikki.”

“I’m not going without either of you.”

“Grand …baby,” Ethan added.

“You told him?” Vikki demanded.

“No, I didn’t tell him!” Zoey snapped. “I told Declan.”

Vikki muttered curses. “Did you fucking read the book?”

“What is it with you people and books? Look, Vikki.” Zoey released Ethan. “Believe it or not, we have a plan. Chrissy and the others know what I’m doing. Hell, even the Professor thought it was a horrible idea but one that might help us out. It’ll be easier for me to do this if you aren’t here for them to torture.”

“Listen, just because I’m –”

“It has nothing to do with that!” Zoey groaned. She took Vikki’s shoulders and shook her. “It has everything to do with why I’m having blackouts and why our Halflings are getting sick. If the information isn’t on the shit we grabbed, I gotta get Olivia or her lab rats to admit to it here. I’ve got three weeks, Vikki. Three.”

Surprise flickered across Vikki’s face.

“Okay? Let me fix my shit, so I can be there when you have that kid.”

“The Professor approved of this plan,” Vikki repeated.

“Well, he didn’t say no.”

Vikki nodded, taking in her features. “Fine. But in twelve hours, I blow this place apart to bring you back.”

“I’m counting on it.”

Vikki moved away, dissatisfied.

Zoey turned back to Ethan, aware she wasn’t going to drag him anywhere. She took up a seat on the floor across from him to await Olivia’s goons.

“Z,” Vikki called from the elevator. “In case something happens and you get permanently brainwashed.”

Zoey met her gaze.

“Declan didn’t know he was cheating on you. He was drugged by Olivia and tricked by Heidi. He’s too much of a fucking idiot to tell you.”