A series of rooms ran along both sides of the hallway with over-sized doors of thick steel. Each had a small square observation opening protected with sturdy vertical bars, but no doorknobs or keyholes. Her gaze traveled down to the dry-erase panels beside each door.
The first one she reached had a handwritten note: Level Three.
Leaning close, she peered through the bars of the observation window to see what was inside the dark room.
Another part-human-looking creature lay curled on the filthy floor, which was ankle deep with what had to be its own excrement, sleeping from what she could see.
No wonder the place was rank.
Who could have created these things? A witch or a mage?
At the next room, she eased up to the observation window and looked into the black hole, not seeing anything until a face slammed the bars.
She jumped back. A tongue slapped at her through the bars, then yellow eyes glowed out of the darkness. When she got out of here, she'd have nightmares about those eyes.
Continuing on, she found something similar in most of the rooms, with notes of Level One, Two or Three beside the doors. All except for two empty rooms where the notes read, "Failed Kill Test - Approved for Food."
She stood in front of the second empty room. That notation had to mean the critter inside had been used as a meal for the others.
What sick bastard was doing this?
Dismissing the cell as vacant, Evalle stepped forward toward the next doorway. Then she heard a gurgling noise from the empty room.
She leaned back. Even with her exceptional vision, she had to squint at the unnatural darkness in the cell until she could make out the shape of a small creature in the far corner. Maybe two feet tall, with batlike wings that were tucked protectively around its short, fat body, it's head was bent down. When the thing lifted its head and looked at her, it had orange eyes and smoke curling from its snout.
The glowing orange eyes were . . . sad.
She tried to tell herself it was an evil creation, maybe even a demon with those two little horns sticking up out of its head, but the decidedly non-human eyes staring at her blinked once and widened a little in curiosity . . . or want.
It trembled.
Her heart did a weird flip.
Casper touched her shoulder, letting her know he was ready for her to move. She continued on, feeling sick over that last little creature. It reminded her of how she'd hidden in the corner of a dark basement every day of her childhood until she'd escaped at eighteen.
Humans feared monsters.
But the monsters in her life had been humans.
At the end of the passageway they dropped down another twelve steps to where she found a door with an actual doorknob.
Casper leaned close to her ear and whispered, "I can get under the bottom."
She kept her voice soft, too. "But I can't cover you from this side if you aren't able to open the door."
"You hear that music?"
Listening, she said, "That atonal noise?"
"Guess whoever's in there likes heavy metal from the 90s. I might get in unnoticed."
She still didn't like the idea of letting him go in without backup.
The scream of a human--being tortured--on the other side of the door was all she needed to wrench the doorknob that was . . . not locked.
They both rushed in, then stopped just inside the door. The room was two stories tall, and the first thing that hit Evalle was the sharp antiseptic smell. This was a lab. Refrigerated units stood against one wall. Microscopes and assorted bottles of fluid and test tubes sat on laminate counters.
But that's where the image distorted.
Music blaring from a stereo system in the shelves on her left had been cranked to bleed-your-ears level.
Mixed in with the antiseptic taint was the stinky body odor and cow manure smell of the creature she'd fought in the pasture, and the sickening smell of blood. In the next few seconds, she scanned the room for any additional threats and possible exits.
The flying creature they'd followed in the helicopter had been chained on the far side of the room to the foundation of metal steps that led upward to a landing and another door.
A man with a bald spot in the crown of his barkbrown hair and wearing a white lab coat stood facing the creature whose mottled skin had been flayed open.
So there was a human in this house of horrors.
The man swung a cat o' nine tails whip, striking the creature and shouting, "You were Level Three! Level Threee!"
The creature screamed in pain. Then it sobbed.
Really, it sounded like a human bawling.
Evalle reached over to the white cabinet and turned off the music then ordered, "Stop. Right. Now."
The crazy lab guy turned around, clearly surprised that someone had entered his domain unscathed. "How'd you get past my guardians to this point?"
"Is that really important right now?" she asked. "Who are you?"
He ignored her question, staring at her with an expression of disbelief. He put two fingers to his temple as though sensing something, then shook his head. "The guardians are still alive. . . . I don't understand."
That meant he had some sort of telepathic connection to the creatures fighting in the parlor. So what was this guy? There was nothing remarkable about him. He had bland skin, a basic nose, short hair and wire-framed glasses over gray eyes. But those gray eyes lacked any humanity. They were cold and flat.
Casper told Evalle, "Looks just like the photo Trey had on his phone. He's Sar Bendelen."
Evalle had the urge to point out that she'd been willing to suspect a doctor of evil, but admitted it wasn't fair to all the decent ones who helped people. "Call off your monsters, Sar."
Sar's eyes went from surprised to perfectly calm. "Or what? I'm someone you'll regret having crossed."
She couldn't believe this guy was acting as though the police had entered his home uninvited. "The longer you allow your guardians, as you call them, to battle our agents, the better chance you have of answering for this with your life."
"Me? I'm not bothering a soul out here on private property," Sar emphasized. "And you come busting in. I'm within my rights to protect my home."
"Not with those nine-foot tall--" She pointed at the thing whimpering. "Monsters or whatever that is you're creating." How powerful was this Sar? Tact wasn't her first language, but it had to work better than making threats she wasn't sure she and Casper could back up. "Call off the ones in your parlor and we'll talk."
Sar appeared thoughtful then his eyebrows jumped with amusement again. "I don't think so."
If she knew what she was up against, she'd hit this guy with a kinetic blast that would pin him to the wall while she found a way to get Tzader, Quinn and Trey away from those guardian creatures. But after what had happened in the parlor with Tzader's kinetics, she couldn't attack without putting Casper, and possibly the rest of the team, in more danger.
Casper exchanged a look with her that said until they knew what they were up against, he didn't have an idea of how to overpower this guy, either.
Evalle asked Sar, "Are you a witch or something?"
Sar looked insulted. "Do you really think a mere witch could do this?" He gestured at the creature moaning behind him. "But you have piqued my curiosity. Now I want to know what you are. Your visit is timely. I'm at the point where I need to test my guardians against preternaturals. We'll see how you fair one at a time against two of my best specimens in my basement training pit."
This was like playing a game of chess without knowing which piece was the queen. Evalle had met some seriously strange people since accepting her destiny as a Belador warrior, but most of them had enough survival instinct to recognize her and Casper as a potential threat.
Sar didn't. If anything, he appeared pleased.
And if he wanted an example of her powers all he had to do was try to lock her in any basement, the key word being "try."
Thinking o
ut loud, Casper said, "He's got to be a wizard or a--"
"Oh, please. I'm a sorcerer," Sar corrected as though Casper had denigrated him. "A Dalfour," he added as if he'd just admitted being of royal descent. As if that hadn't been enough to impress them, he spread his arms wide and bragged, "The only one left and the only one who could have accomplished all this."
Dalfour meant nothing to Evalle, but her empathic senses picked up what she'd been missing. This guy had been too calm. If he was a sorcerer, why hadn't he tried to attack them? She'd assumed it was because he was sizing her and Casper up to determine how big a threat they were.
But now she realized Sar didn't see either of them as a threat at all . . . because he was certifiably insane.
In Sar's private universe he was the most powerful being. Which he might actually be, especially when you added the element of insanity to a powerful sorcerer. That combination totaled up to one unpredictable badass.
He was enjoying himself right now, but what would happen the minute he stopped having a good time?
Could he just zap them out of here and into a basement pit with two of these creatures?
She gave Casper a small hand signal to keep this guy talking to give her a chance to look for controls that might open the metal panels in the parlor. If she found those, she might be able to use her kinetics to turn a lever or flip a switch that would open the shielding and allow the Beladors to escape. There was only so long the three of them could hold out against those guardians, and Sar might release more.
Evidently Casper was up on his sorcerer history when he prodded the crazy doctor by saying, "Thought the Dalfour family died off a century ago. Weak genetics. Some sickness, right?"
"No illness would have ever harmed us!" Sar said, clearly put out. "We were attacked by Svart Trolls who were supposed to deliver my father to a Noirre witch who wanted my family's secrets. But the trolls killed him in a battle and burned our house to the ground, claiming my father burned his family rather than go with them."
There wasn't a place in the room that even remotely resembled a control panel to Evalle.
Casper caught the small shake of her head as Sar said, "Much as I've enjoyed having guests, it's time to feed my guardians. I just have to decide who gets the woman. They like females."
Evalle curled her fists, preparing for battle, when Casper asked Sar, "So how is it everyone else died and you lived? I'm having a hard time believing you escaped Svart Trolls--the most dangerous black ops mercenary trolls in existence--on your own. Death is their only acceptable reason for failure."
Sar puffed up his scrawny chest, all pompous now in spite of his drawn-out sigh. "My parents hid me, my sister and brother, which saved us from the attack, but I inherited my father's skills and managed to escape. It was fortunate that I was the sole surviving Dalfour, as I have proven to be the most gifted and carry on our legacy of making the impossible a reality. Creating new and powerful races who serve only me."
If Evalle couldn't find a way to open the shields in the parlor, she needed to know how to stop the monsters. Taking her lead from Casper, she played to Sar's ego. "Your guardians are impressive. How'd you make them, and why?"
"As if I'm going to tell you any of my secrets? Why? To protect me when I make that Noirre coven pay for what they did to my family. They'll never get through my guardians . . . once I figure out how you got past them. Time to put you in the pit." Sar lifted his hands, and Evalle searched for anything to say to stop him.
"If you can control them."
That made Sar pause. He put his hands down and said, "Of course I can."
"How do you communicate orders to them?"
Sar smiled, not as easily tricked as she would have liked.
This was going nowhere.
Maybe if she took Sar hostage and dragged him back to the parlor she could force him to bring his monsters under control. That might have a snowball's chance in hell of working if she was facing a demon, but she had her doubts about forcing a sorcerer to do anything.
Casper nodded at the bloody creature now lunging at Sar, bouncing off the end of its chain, with hate in its creepy human eyes, and pointed out, "Your training doesn't seem to be working."
Sar seemed oblivious to the way his guardian was trying to reach him, focused completely on him with deadly intent. "Everything takes time and you're imposing on mine. I'll say good-bye now."
He was a ballsy bastard. Still grabbing at any way to stall him, she asked, "Think telling us good-bye is going to work? VIPER has an attack team closing in on this place."
"What's VIPER?" The first sign of worry crossed Sar's face.
He really was a recluse to not know about VIPER.
"VIPER is an army of people like us, some who are even more powerful," Evalle said, wishing her threat about a team on the way hadn't been a bluff.
Tzader came into her head. What have you got, Evalle?
We found Sar and he made these creatures, but he's an insane Dalfour sorcerer.
A Dalfour? Ah, hell. Quinn's hitting the minds of these things in short blasts but we're losing ground and Trey's hurt. I told our pilot to call for back-up if we weren't out of here in twenty minutes. He should be calling now but the closest team is fifteen minutes away. You can't wait. Dalfours were serious head cases. Get out of there now!
Not without Tzader, Quinn and Trey.
Seeing the first crack in Sar's confidence, Evalle tried once again to reason with Sar. "You're out of moves, Sar. Call off your monsters and let's talk before VIPER gets here."
"I don't think so. I have a better idea." As if directing a command, Sar pointed a finger at the counter between them. A panel slid aside and the control center Evalle had been looking for appeared, complete with a monitor showing a video of the fight in the parlor. "I'll send all my guardians to the parlor and if your people win, I'll go quietly with you. If my guardians win, you get a chance to fight them. But I should mention that I keep my pets hungry."
Well, crud. He was calling her and Casper's bluff and putting them on the spot to prove they could stop him.
When Sar moved his hand to touch the button, Evalle threw a blast of kinetic energy at the panel, preventing his hand from reaching it.
No backlash from the kinetics down here. Excellent. It must have been the metal panels in the parlor. A high-tech alloy maybe.
Sar looked surprised, and amused, then whipped his hands back and forth, sending dark blue bottles of liquid off the counter and flying at Evalle and Casper.
She used her free hand to throw up a shield of energy. The liquid splashed against her shield, sizzling like acid as it slid down.
The sorcerer pointed at Casper, and the cowboy lifted off the ground then flew backwards. Casper roared in mid-air and flickered with the image of his highland warrior counterpart. Lightning sparked off his body. When he hit a tall cabinet filled with more blue bottles of liquid, the electrical energy shooting off his spirit image struck the cabinet and it exploded into a ball of fire.
Casper shifted into a shadow as fire from the cabinet climbed the wall of the lab.
Sar froze, staring at the flames, terror overshadowing the crazy haze in his eyes. If the bastard's story about his family and their deaths was true, fire had to be his worst fear.
Evalle didn't waste her opportunity to reach that panel. She had to release the kinetic energy she was using to shield the control panel from Sar to redirect her power.
His shocked gaze cleared a second too soon.
Just as she threw a kinetic hit of energy to shove him back from the controls, Sar slapped the silver button, laughing . . . but lost his smile when he flew backwards into the arms of his chained guardian.
The creature grabbed the sorcerer in its curled claws and bit off the top half of Sar's head.
His eyes remained wide open with horror.
Casper had resumed human form and slammed the heavy steel door to the hallway shut, then threw the deadbolt. Good thing, since two seconds later the
creatures Sar had released from their cells screamed and pounded on the door to the lab. They were either hungry, as he'd said, or they wanted their own bite of Sar. She couldn't blame them.
Evalle hoped those things couldn't reach Tzader, Quinn and Trey, but she and Casper had only one way out now.
Up.
Smoke filled the room and burned her eyes.
Casper appeared next to her, weapons in hand. "Can you open the shields on the parlor?"
"I can't find anything marked on this panel. I'm afraid I'll send those things to the parlor." She choked on her next smoke-filled breath and started coughing.
"Sure as hell can't escape through that hallway. Let's go upstairs and find a way out, then we'll figure out how to help Tzader and the others."
These half-human creatures would be burned alive.
She had a moment of regret over the little orangeeyed guy with the bat wings, but she had a team to save. Besides, that little creature might be just as dangerous as the rest of these. Though some voice deep inside her argued that everything deserved a chance.
Using her power to form a shield between the two of them and the chained monster, she and Casper rushed up two flights of stairs to the door on the top level. Fire nipped at their heels and sucked the oxygen from the room. At the upstairs door, Evalle rushed inside a room with a wall of monitors. Smoke clouded the images, but she could make out the hallway between the parlor and the lab. She got a glimpse of Sar's creatures attacking one another just before the picture turned completely gray. Images on the monitors fuzzed and one by one they went blank. Was the fire racing through the building, destroying wires?
Searching the room, she found a wall plate with a series of numbered buttons marked House Shields.
Casper said, "How the hell do we make sense of that without knowing which rooms the numbers correspond to?"
"We can't. I need to warn Tzader." Evalle lifted her hand, letting Casper know she was reaching out telepathically.
She said, We're out of the lab and it's on fire. Can Trey run?
Tzader answered, Yes. He's got a shoulder wound.
Get ready to run the minute I start pushing buttons to release metal shields, because all the creatures are loose. I have no way to make sure I don't let them into the parlor.