Tess glanced back over her shoulder. “Wel , suck it up, princess, because that’s what you’re getting. We have to go up, maybe use a door for a higher floor. There are people coming up these stairs at a run.
Listen.”
It was faint, but there was definitely the pounding of footsteps from further down, and moving at much faster speeds than a human could run. Since any sane werewolf was running on pack land or locked in for the ful moon, she had to assume that meant vampires. Or, worse, not sane werewolves. Neither option was one she wanted to deal with. “Al right. Up we go. Let’s get out of Smithvil e.”
Heaving Alex up the steps one at a time, her heart broke every time he tripped and stumbled. His breath came out at a pant, sweat pouring down his face. He didn’t even pause to wipe it away, just used one hand on the railing to help haul himself up the stairs. Filtering as much of her own healing energy to him as she could spare, she took a moment to be grateful he didn’t tel them to leave him, because they didn’t have time for that argument. The little genius had to know she wouldn’t do it. Neither would Tess, when she wasn’t damn near catatonic.
Al three of them staggered drunkenly up to the landing one floor above where they had started, only to find there was no going any further. They’d reached the roof. “Oh, fuck.”
“Better out there than sardined on a stairway,” Tess stated, shoving on the metal bar that opened the door.
A piercing alarm shrieked when it swung wide, and Chloe winced, but worked with Tess to jockey Alex through the opening.
“Can you use your magic woo-woo to booby trap the door?” Tess gave her a hopeful look, swatted the heavy metal door shut, and shrugged. “Because there went any element of surprise we had about where we got off the stairwel .”
“They can track us by scent anyway. They’re werewolves. And vampires. Both are coming after us, so they’l find us in the next minute or so.” Alex sucked in a deep breath of the cool air, untainted by the oppressive fear and human waste of the laboratory. “I can smel them.”
He pushed away from their support, managed a few steps on his own before he threw his head back to stare at the ful moon peeking out from between the clouds. Chloe used the free moment to press her hands against the door. Booby trap. She’d never tried to booby trap anything in her entire life. Closing her eyes, she concentrated on what she wanted, letting her ugly emotions feed the energy needed for the spel . Pain, agony, fire, corrosion, death for whoever opened the door. She twisted the words into an endless litany in her mind, building a shield around the door, a shield that sparked with red and orange and white-hot flames.
Heat radiated from the metal surface in front of her, and she gasped, jolting backward.
“Holy freaking shit,” Tess breathed.
No kidding. The door had expanded, warping, melting into its frame. The shield around it shimmered, smel ed of molten iron, and whispered of ominous things. Chloe shook out her hands, ridding herself of the dark energy the spel had generated.
A choking sound from Alex brought her around to face him, and a low sob from the boy made her hurry to his side. She cupped his cheeks between her palms. “Alex, honey. You can’t freak out on me now. I know it’s not good, but the other option was dying in a silver cage. We’l find a way out of this. I know we wil .”
“No.” He shook his head, a single tear streaking down his face, and he swiped it away, embarrassment reflecting in his eyes. “It’s ful moon, and I’m stil human. ” He flung his arms out, extending and retracting his claws. “Look. I can shift, but I don’t have to. We did it, Chloe. It worked. ”
“Gods.” She didn’t know what else to say. So many things spun through her mind, wild hope, crazy scientific possibilities, deathly terror because the danger was nowhere near past. She grabbed for something real, something sane. “The side effects aren’t good, because you weren’t doing so hot.”
He snorted. “A few minutes for the healing magic to kick in, but that’s nothing if it means wolves don’t have to worry about dying. Some tests, some tweaking. But look at me. I’m not even having to fight for it, and I’m human.”
Something enormous slammed into the door, making them both jolt back to ugly reality. Tess cal ed from where she was prowling around the edge of the building. “Could we hold off on the celebration until we’re out of here, please?”
Stumbling back from the door, they al gathered near the railing. Twinkling city lights stretched in a panorama around them, brightly lit high-rises and the Space Needle piercing the sky, with the Puget Sound a dark swath in the distance. Chloe was almost ashamed of the relief that rushed through her at being back in a metropolis, surrounded by mil ions of lights. “Wel , we’re downtown. As if that helps from up here.”
Wind rushed up, pushing them back from the edge of the building. This time, when whoever was at the door pounded on the metal, he or she got through it. Chloe groaned at the shock that punched through her with breath-stealing force as her shield gave way. Then a great explosion shook the very air around them when the door blew. They ducked, hitting the hard cement surface of the roof. Screams, flames, the putrid stink of burning flesh.
Chloe stared in stunned silence, unable to believe what she had wrought. Bodies on fire danced in grotesque patterns across the roof, some moving so fast they made streaks in the darkness. Slowly, they col apsed. Dead. She knew they were dead.
“Holy shit,” Tess gasped.
Even Alex turned to give Chloe an incredulous look. Shaking her head in mute silence, she clenched her quaking fingers. “I don’t know how I did that.”
A quiver ran through the wolf’s body, and his nostrils expanded as he pul ed in a deep breath. “Smith’s coming. Gregor and Sasha. A female wolf, too. Get ready.”
No Peyton. Had he survived the fight? Had he run as soon as he had the opportunity? Chloe stil associated the man with the burn of bronze against her skin, so she wasn’t ready to trust that he’d helped them for some altruistic reason. For al she knew, he was hoping to overthrow Smith and take over and they’d just provided a handy excuse. She wasn’t wil ing to trust much of anything anymore.
And then there was no more time for thinking.
The wolves are mine. Alex tensed beside her, his muscles twisting and flexing as he grew into a monstrous half-shift. His dark skin went pitch black, his facial bones stretching into a muzzle with massive, dripping fangs. The tal boy grew to a height of almost seven feet, and his ropy young muscles swel ed to a rippling sinew so huge he exploded from his baggy T-shirt. Parts of him shrank in and others thrust forward, making grotesque sucking and crackling sound effects.
It took place in a handful of seconds, but those terrifying moments stayed with a person forever. Tess choked and swayed, her eyes forming perfect circles as she stared at the transformed Alex. A deep roar ripped loose from the teen, answered when two other half-shifted wolves plunged through the smoking doorway. They leaped forward, dropping into crouches to survey their prey.
A noise that was almost a chuckle rippled from Alex before he launched himself toward them. Chloe grabbed for his arm, wanting to hold him back, but he was moving faster than her reflexes could keep up with. She missed, crying out as the three half-animals col ided with the crunch of shattering bones.
“Get down!” Red streaked through the night, and Tess dove to knock Chloe off her feet as a spel bomb exploded where she’d been standing.
Tess covered both of their heads with her arms, and Chloe automatical y threw up a shield around them.
The next bomb exploded like shooting fireworks against her warding spel , and she jerked when the dark magic ruptured her shield. It was a blow to the solar plexus that left her gasping, and before she’d managed to recover, Tess bounded off her, which gave Gregor the opportunity to drag her away from Chloe’s protection.