Perfect, my love!
Kiss ass,RS huffed.
We're in a bit of trouble here, if you wouldn't mind holding your insults until we're out of the FUCKING SLAUGHTER ROOM I'd appreciate it!I shouted at RS.
Yeah, okay,she muttered.
The smacking clatter of Kerli's “Diamond Hard” echoed off the metal walls and I immediately started to sing. The magic lashed up my throat, propelled by my urgency. The strings came next, adding an ethereal note to the back alley rhythm. Then a grating electric sound shot through the music and it all became a blasting audio attack. The men winced but my magic was already seeping into their skin. I sang about rising to the challenge of an overwhelming assault—that no matter what was thrown at us, we'd triumph. We were as impenetrable as the hardest jewel there was—utterly unbreakable. Immune to every missile launched at us.
As I sang, our skin began to glow. The glow magnified, then faded, leaving a pale, glassy sheen behind. We looked as if we'd been dipped in frosted glass. I kept singing but I couldn't resist giving my forearm a curious tap. My nail clicked against the flexible but diamond-hard barrier. I lifted my head, met Gage's wide-eyed stare, and grinned. He looked strange with pale skin—like a ghost. A curved blade swung out of the wall beside him and he blocked it with his forearm, trusting in me and my magic implicitly.
And I proved worthy of his trust.
The blade screeched and something within the wall whined. Gears grated as Gage grabbed the blade and yanked. The mechanism came out of the wall, wires dangling from one end like entrails. Gage lifted it into the air, gave a triumphant shout, then folded his hands around its base and began bashing it into the wall. My mother had once told me that when you get a stain on your dress, the best fabric to use to scrub it out is that of the dress itself. I don't know why it works, but it does. And using the slaughter room's warded weapons against it worked too. Gage tore a hole in the wall, then started hacking at what lay beyond it.
Cerberus howled in glee and grabbed the next sharp thing that came his way. It happened to be one of those rolling discs, which made getting a grip on it difficult. But he was determined and he managed to grab it tightly enough to dent and fold the metal. He yanked the whole thing out of the floor, then flung it over our heads like a discus. It sliced through the wall and kept going. A sliver of sunlight showed through.
“What do you think this is, the fucking Olympics?” Banning shouted at him. “Watch where you're throwing that shit!”
“Hey, Bann?” Cer shot back as he grabbed another weapon. “Get a grip! It's not as if it could have hurt you.”
Cerberus got a more manageable blade this time and gave another howl as he started a game of Whack-A-Mole with the weapons in the floor. The other men shrugged, grinned at each other, and started to chase down their own instruments of destruction. Although I understood it, I didn't bother with the pointless violence. Instead, I strode across the room as I continued to sing, moving to the beat. When I reached the other side, I pulled the lever. Everything ground to a stop, gears whining and motors clanking as they wound down.
“Son of a Cyclops!” Cerberus swung his ax into the floor like a child throwing a tantrum. “I was just getting into the swing of things.”
I waved at him to get his attention as I kept singing, then pointed at the bars.
“Oh, shit! Sorry, El.” Cerberus yanked up the ax, ran over to me, and swung his weapon at the bars.
The cell bars cracked and crumpled, then Cer tossed the ax aside and yanked the bars away with his bare hands. I released my song, just before it concluded and settled us into our diamond skin. The magic faded and so did the sheen over our bodies. But I noted that absently, my focus was on the men laid out before me. I got to my knees between them, one hand going to each of them.
“Slate?” I stroked his cheek. “Verin?” I shook his shoulder. “Guys?”
“They're probably going to be out awhile,” Odin said gently. “They're alive and so are we, thanks to you. Let's get out of this horrible room before any of that changes.”
Chapter Forty-Four
Gage and Cerberus carried Verin and Slate downstairs to the floor below. We had to get out of the warded slaughter room—what a horrible but accurate name—to use our traveling stones to leave Scotland. Cer and my guys—those still awake—didn't want to go. They thought we should search the house until we found Vivian, but Odin argued that she could simply pick us off, one by one, as she'd started doing but this time she might kill us after she drugged us. Now that we were certain it was Vivian, we could take our evidence to the other witch leaders and they'd organize a hunt. The men weren't satisfied with that option until Odin agreed that they'd be included in the hunt.
So, we used our stones to trace to Kyanite and then back to the Crouching Lion, Cer and Gage once again carrying the comatose men. Odin came with us because we decided that we'd all speak to Glinda and Osamu together. That meant that we had to wait for Verin and Slate to wake up. I did my waiting in Slate's guest room, a few doors down from Verin's. I let the guys take care of Verin. I'd done enough fretting over him as it was; I wasn't about to sit at his bedside waiting for him to wake up when he didn't want me there. Yeah, I know, that was a little bitter. But now that he was back, safe and sound, my annoyance had returned.
“Elaria?”
I turned in my chair to face the door. Verin stood there, looking gorgeous despite his earlier impression of a sack of potatoes. If I'd been drugged, tossed on a floor, then carted from Scotland to Kyanite to Kansas, I'd be a mess. But not him. Nope, Verin's hair was a glossy line down his back, his clothes clean and unwrinkled, and his face... well... perfect.
“Hey,” I whispered as I got up. “How are you feeling?”
“What happened?” Verin peered over my shoulder. “Is that Slate?”
“Yeah, she got him too.”
“Who got him?”
“Vivian.” I sighed and stepped out into the hall with him, closing the door behind me. “She used an illusion to impersonate one of Banning's Blooders and drugged you. Then she took you to her place in Scotland.”
Verin frowned. “I think I remember a woman in my room.” His expression went concerned. “Is she all right?”
“Vivian? For now. We're going to hunt her down after Slate wakes up.”
