I took the hammer and screwdriver to the door and started working on the pins and hinges. If I could get the pins out, maybe whatever the spell was on the door wouldn't recognize that as breaking in. I might be able to get in the room and deal with the last three people.
The pins wouldn't budge. Hitting the screwdriver into the door with the hammer didn't work.
I stepped into the Victorian bedrooms. The oil lamp’s bottom was full of amber liquid. Very flammable oil. I checked inside the nightstand it stood on and found the large plastic bottle of lamp oil. Score.
"Okay," I said loudly, holding out the box of matches and bottle. "I'm going to count to three. If you haven't opened this door, I'm soaking this door with lamp oil and lighting it on fire. I'll leave the three of you in there to burn alive. If you jump out of any windows, I'll be outside, waiting for you to fall to your deaths. And if you survive the fall, I'll happily rip your throats out."
They were shuffling around inside the room. I waited for a tick before I started counting. Would they be smart? Death at my hands would be faster than fire.
"One." More scrambling and the sound of something scraping across the floor.
I raised my voice as loud as it would go. "Two."
As I curved my lips and put my tongue between my teeth to say three, I heard a car pull up outside.
Damn it. Hurrying back into the bedroom, I peered out of the window. It was Bran's SUV. I listened to the sound of the front door opening. They'd already exited before I'd gotten over to the window. They were moving fast.
Backup was here. Maybe they could help with the door, and we'd be able to question all the alchemists before I disposed of them.
I leaned close to the locked door. "Enjoy your reprieve. This is only a delay."
"Up here," I called. I approached the stairs, pausing in the doorway of the nearer bedroom to leave room for them to gather up here.
Bran was the first up the stairs. He bounded up, taking them two or three at a time. "What are you doing? Is the unconscious man on the landing one of our enemies?"
"Yes, he’s there to be questioned later. The other three alchemists in this house, including Franklin and Eldora, are behind this door." I nodded toward the locked end of the hallway as Rissa topped the stairs with the muse.
"What is he doing here?"
Footsteps drew my attention and Cathy stepped out from behind Rissa and the muse. "What the hell is she doing here?" I stared at my second. Was she suddenly incompetent? "I told you to take care of her."
Cathy put her hands on her hips. "Did you mean tokillme?"
If I wanted intelligent children, I might have to reconsider having them with her. Killing her myself would have been easy, why delegate it to Rissa? "It wasn't necessary, but you don't need to be in the middle of this. Your skills and abilities are more valuable away from a fight."
Rissa leaned toward the muse and squeezed his arm. She bit her words out, sharp white teeth close to his face. "If you want to live, give him back his feelings."
Whose feelings?
"And my creativity," Cathy snarled. "Now."
Paul sighed. "Fine."
Something punched me in the chest. I staggered backward, and seconds later, Cathy did the same. She backed into a wall while I kept going until my butt hit the bed in the room behind me.
Luckily it wasn’t the Victorian room. I’d have tripped over something in there for sure.
Gasping, I tried not to scream from the sensation of all my emotions returning at once. I felt lighter and stronger, but the thrill was quickly replaced with a pang of intense guilt. I had been so busy focusing on killing the alchemists, I hadn't realized how much of myself had been missing.
I'd been without my emotions and hadn't known. How had I missed it?
"That's it then," Paul said quietly. "You're both yourselves again."
Cathy nodded, her eyes glazing over. "So many ideas," she whispered. "Geez."
I was not going to cry in front of all of these people, but damn it was hard to stop the waves of emotions. I'd been without them for a mere few hours, and this was how it felt to get them back? Imagine if it'd been days or weeks.
Even though I now had a healthy amount of rage toward the muse, I had a higher priority. Overwhelmingly I wanted to tell Cathy how sorry I was.
