I looked up in time to see more fire heading my way. I rolled to my left. Heatwhumped; shelves blackened; a box of old manuals caught and flared. The flames licked up the wall as Kerr edged towards the door on all fours. I couldn’t let him escape. Heprobably had the keys, and without them, Maktel and Hanlon would die here.
Goddamn it. I reached out again with my subterfuge powers, locking onto Kerr’s mind.Sleep,I told him. He dropped to the floor, and started to snore loudly.
Beeks turned to me, eyes wide. ‘Sub-wizard!’ he spat. ‘That wasn’t in your file!’ He took a trembling step backward, because now he knew there was no defence against me, not for him.
‘No, it wasn’t,’ I said calmly.
He swallowed. ‘I won’t tell anyone. If you let me go, I won’t tell anyone.’
I smiled. ‘That’s kind of you.’
I pictured Mum in her kitchen, swaying to music as she cooked for us all, and it wasn’t even a conscious decision. If she was found to have lied about my powers, she’d be bound for Wraithmore, with the rapists and my kidnapper. No, that wasn’t her fate, couldn’t ever be her fate. I reached for his mind, latched onto his medulla oblongata, and stopped it from working.
His eyes were frozen wide and his chest simply stopped breathing. He clawed at his throat, but I wasn’t cruel enough to let him suffer. I drew my knife and threw it – with skill this time, rather than power – straight at his throat. My throw hit true, and he stared at me in panic as I drew closer.
‘It’ll be quicker this way,’ I promised.
I went to remove the knife from his throat, but he surprised me by reaching up and promptly ripping the knife from his own neck. I’m not sure whether he thought he could use it on me, but it was far too late for that. Blood poured out of the gaping wound and he swayed before dropping to his knees, his chest still unmoving as behind us Kerr kept snoring.
I waited until the light left his eyes – the moment he shifted from living to dead – before I callously searched his body. I swore when I couldn’t find the damned keys. Goddamn it!Maktel and Hanlon were bleeding, and I needed to free them.Now.
In for a penny, in for a pound. I whirled around and sank into Kerr’s mind, searching for the key’s location. Various key-related images spooled through his mind: the place he hid the key to his familial mansion, the place he put his car key, the key to his diary. What, was he eight?
The key to the seer cuffs,I specified impatiently. The image of a military-green rucksack came into view. I went to withdraw from Kerr’s mind and instantly knew I had misstepped. I didn’t use my sub powers often enough to know that stomping around in his thoughts would thoroughly wake him despite my initial command, and while I’d been parading through his memories, he’d come to and pressed his hands around my already injured throat.
Pain roared through me and my eyes flared open just as he lifted my head and thoroughly whacked it against the floor. Pain exploded again, and with his hands around my throat, I couldn’t fucking breathe. It was odd poetic justice; he was cutting off my air supply exactly as I had done to Beeks.
He was heavier than he looked. My skull bounced on the uncarpeted flooring a second time before instinct kicked in.
Air, Stacy. Use the bloody air.
I gathered what little focus I had left and pulled. The air between us thickened like syrup; his grip faltered enough for me to twist a hand free and drive my thumb straight into the hollow of his throat. He gagged, the pressure on my neck easing. I rolled sideways, coughing hard, spots swimming in my vision.
Kerr stumbled back, eyes wild and unfocused, beard slick with sweat. ‘You—you think you can crawl around in my head?’ he wheezed. ‘You’re no better than them! Bitch filth in uniform.’
‘You murdered two men to boost your daddy’s career,’ I rasped, pushing up on one knee. ‘I’m better by default.’ I gathered the intention within me.
He snatched a fallen taser from the table and levelled it at me, hands shaking. ‘You don’t get to judge me.’
‘That’s literally my job,’ I said drily and flicked my fingers.
A whip of compressed air caught him full in the chest. He hit the wall hard enough to rattle the strip lights. The taser went off uselessly, blue arcs hissing against plaster. I lunged, kicking the weapon aside.
‘My father will bury you for this.’ His lip curled. ‘You think the Connection will really care about a few dead creature-lovers?’
That did it. My hand came up of its own accord, fingers trembling, and I touched his temple. The connection hit like cold lightning. His memories flickered behind my eyes: Angie’s proud smile, Beeks’s leer, Drummond’s body cooling on blood-soaked sheets. The taste of power. The thrill. He’d watched the light fade from his eyes and had known it was the right thing to do. After all, hissisterhad fucked an ogre.
He hadn’t stabbed Drummond nor had he kicked the door in like Hunter had, but he’d ordered the death, seen the death, and he’denjoyedit. Wanted to do it himself. Had fantasised about it. Had even picked out a female satyr target. He planned for her to be the first of many. He wanted to watch the light leave her eyes while his dick was in her body.
I went cold at the horrifying thoughts.
He saw me looking through his memories, his plans, and for the first time, genuine fear replaced arrogance. ‘Get out of my head, you fucking bitch!’
‘Gladly,’ I whispered. ‘You disgust me, but I have to do one more little thing first.’
I pushed deeper, right down to the place where thought became breath. I found the medulla again – the brainstem that had served me so neatly before – and pressed.
He jerked, mouth opening in a silent half-formed plea. His chest hitched once, twice, then stopped. I held it there, and because I needed a cover, I wrapped my hands around his throat the way he had done to me. I held my fingers there until I felt his mind stutter like a candle buffeted in a draught. I pulled my mind back hastily. The head injury was making me woozy as fuck, but I knew I needed to get out of his mind before he died.
