Torment (Soul Savers Book 6) (34 page)

“Not really,”
Sonya replied. “They were trying to bug out of downtown D.C.,
with the politicians and Daemoni being all butt buddy and BFFs with
each other. Last we heard, they thought they’d found a place
somewhere on the edge of the city, or maybe the suburbs.”

And that was entirely
helpful.

“You don’t
know where?” Charlotte asked.

“Not a clue,”
Teal said. “We lost contact with them right after that. The
night the power and the phones …
everything
…
went down and never came back.”

“The night the
world crashed and burned,” Heather said.

The heaviness of the
statement weighed down on all of us, and the girls seemed to have
been distracted from the question. I asked them again if they wanted
to come with us.

“Yeah, we’ll
go with you,” Sonya said, making the decision for the group.
“Maybe we can find them.”

“Where to, boss
lady?” Owen asked me. “All I can think of is the safe
house, but that could expose our people there.”

“
If
there’s anyone there,” Blossom muttered.

“It’s our
safest place to appear,” Tristan said. “And the Amadis
there were supposed to have moved out.”

“Except it’s
a
safe
house,” Sheree said. “There are all kinds
of reasons for them to stay.”

“Then we’ll
figure out something,” Tristan said. “It’s the only
place I feel safe taking my wife, my son, and the rest of you without
knowing what we’re walking into. It’s our best option.”

He nodded at Owen who
opened the portal. I couldn’t help but notice the warlock
seemed to strain a little, and it took him longer to create the
opening this time. He hadn’t rested or eaten since we left
London and arrived here, and I could only imagine how much energy a
portal required. After all, typically only sorcerers possessed enough
power to create them.

We showed up in the
foyer of the safe house mansion in Fairfax, Virginia, where we’d
been only a few months ago while searching for Dorian. Only then,
there had been several new converts and a staff. Now it was dark and
empty. Abandoned. Other than being gloomy and quiet, it appeared to
have been unscathed. Paintings still hung on the walls, the antique
furniture looked undamaged, and the marble floors were clean and
polished. Apparently, no looters had found it yet. Everyone but
Vanessa and Sonya went straight for the gourmet island kitchen. The
dark wood cabinets were still loaded with non-perishables, lifting
our spirits.

Once we filled our
bellies and caught a few hours of rest, we made sure Sonya and the
Normans, including Dorian, settled in, put Sasha on guard duty with
the vampire, and left to scope out the same Department of Defense
building where we’d found Dorian and the Summoned a few months
ago. It was one of three five-story structures, all belonging to the
DoD, that formed a squared-off U-shape with a lake in the middle of
it. We stepped through the portal into the pitch black of the parking
lot at the top of the horseshoe, the only light from the moon and
stars overhead. I’d never seen Northern Virginia so
black—usually a yellow glow from street lamps, headlights, and
buildings lit up the night, obscuring the millions of stars that
shone now as if someone had tossed a massive jar of glitter against
the black blanket of sky.

No sooner had my eyes
adjusted to the darkness when the entire building in front of us
erupted into a thunderous explosion … and my head felt as
though it exploded along with it.

I thought at first
they’d been watching us. Expecting us. Jeana and Merrick, maybe
Lucas, too. The timing had been so perfect—as soon as my entire
team had come through the portal and it closed behind us, the pick
plunged into my brain, causing me to grab my head and double over. My
team circled around me in the parking lot, and a moment later, we
were knocked to our hands and knees with the explosion.

The ground shook, and
heat blasted out at us. The building and the sky lit up bright as
daylight as a huge ball of fire blossomed above the structure and
then dimmed with an orange radiance casting over the entire area.
Tristan lunged on top of me, pushing me closer to the ground, as
glass, metal, concrete, and who knew what else rained down onto the
asphalt of the parking lot. My ears rang and thudded, blocking out
any other sound. Flames danced out of broken windows and soared high
into the sky, devouring what remained of the building. The acrid
smell and taste of smoke filled my nose and mouth.

And through it all, I
picked up on the mind signatures. They’d been absent and my
head quiet, so I noticed immediately when they returned. Besides my
team, three others popped up, but two blipped out before I could
latch on and identify them. The third had become familiar to me, and
my heart stopped at how faint it came.

“Noah’s in
the fire!” I yelled. At least, I thought I did. The ringing in
my ears prevented me from even hearing myself. The pain in my skull
kept me from trying to mind-speak it. I pushed against Tristan’s
weight to rise to my hands and knees, and he sprang off of me,
pulling me up with him.

“Owen and I will
go,” he said. “You stay here.”

At least, that’s
what I thought he’d said, figuring it out as Owen waved his
hands around the two of them, and then they raced through the parking
lot toward the building. As they passed a few burning cars at the
front of the lot, I could only hope Owen had shielded them with some
kind of fire protectant, because they headed straight into the
flames.

“Tristan!”
I shouted and tried to run after him. The rest of my team tightened
their circle around me, though, preventing me from passing through.
They watched our surroundings carefully, but I sensed nobody around.
Gritting my teeth, I pushed past the ache in my head to locate Noah’s
fading mind signature, as well as Tristan’s and Owen’s.

He’s in the
far, west corner
, I told them, hoping they could hear me. They
moved in that direction, which I took as a good sign. Then I realized
Noah seemed to be above them.
On the second floor, I think? Is
there still a second floor?

Moments passed. Maybe
they couldn’t hear me.
Maybe we should go in
. Vanessa
and I would be fast enough to run through the flames without being
burnt. Maybe. My muscles bunched, ready to spring.

“
There’s
a second floor back here,
” Tristan finally said, followed
by, “
We found him
.”

My body relaxed.
Slightly. At least I could breathe again.

Is he still alive?
I couldn’t imagine how he would be after that explosion, and I
was losing his mind signature. I couldn’t latch onto any
thoughts. More agony sliced into my brain as I tried harder. And then
I lost them all.

“Something’s
wrong,” I told the rest of my team, and I gripped the closest
arms to me—Charlotte’s and Jax’s. Once again, my
muscles prepared to bolt. “They’re gone!”

I lunged, trying to
dash for the building, but Char and Jax both grabbed at me, holding
me back. When I fought against them, Vanessa put me in a chokehold.

I squirmed against her
iron-like grip. “We have to go after them!”

“Whoa,”
Char said. “
You’re
not going in there.”

“The hell I’m
not.”

“What are you
going to do, princess?” Jax asked. “Walk right into those
flames? They were protected.”

“And now they’re
gone! Vanessa and I—”

“Wait,”
Blossom interrupted. “
They’re
gone, or all of us
are? You know, in your head?”

I blinked at her. Then
realized what she meant.

“All of you,”
I admitted when I noticed my head had gone completely blank again. At
least, the part that saw the mind signatures. The rest of my brain
went ninety-miles-an-hour as I wondered what happened to Tristan,
wished I had Dorian’s or Mom’s capabilities to manipulate
the water in the lake behind the building and put the fire out, and
watching and praying for Tristan and Owen to come out alive,
hopefully with Noah.

“So maybe they’re
okay,” Sheree said.

“Or maybe they’re
dying, waiting for us to come rescue them,” I bit back.

Charlotte scrunched her
lips together as she stared at the fiery building. “Give them
sixty seconds. Then someone will go in.”

The minute passed
painfully slow—it may as well have been a year—and had
almost expired when finally they appeared. All three of them, Owen
and Tristan dragging Noah’s unconscious body between them,
their faces smudged black with soot so only their eyes showed.
Vanessa freed me, and I ran to them. To Tristan, who grabbed me with
one arm when I threw myself at him.

“Don’t ever
do that to me again!” I ordered as I clung to him.

“We’re
fine,
ma lykita
.” He turned his head enough to plant a
kiss on my cheek. “But now you know how it feels.”

I let out a harrumph
and released my grasp on him to cross my arms over my chest as I fell
in stride next to him. He had a point—I used to have a bad
habit of running off without him and straight into danger.

“If you were
trying to protect me, you know that won’t work for long. I
nearly went in after you.”

He blew out a breath as
he tugged on Noah’s shoulder. “Yeah, that’s why we
gave up the search for anyone else. So you wouldn’t do that.”

I frowned. “You
can’t choose my life over anyone else’s! Lucky for you
there was no one else in there.”

“Lex, I will
always
choose you over everyone else.”

My heart—invariably
weak when it came to him—did a little flip.

Then Owen said, “We
all will. We’re
sworn
to.”

They dragged Noah’s
body farther out into the parking lot, away from the burning
building, before flipping him over to lay him on his back. His heart
still beat, slow and faint, and he remained unconscious, even after
we tried to jostle him awake.

“Hold him,
Tristan,” I said as I exposed my dagger and slid it out of its
sheathe at my hip. “This could be our one chance.”

I kneeled next to the
prone body and lifted my dagger. Noah’s eyes flew open right
when I was about to stab the blade into his chest to dig out the
stone. They were dark and murderous, and his body strained, but even
as big and strong as he looked, he couldn’t budge against
Tristan’s power.

“Do. It.”
The words came out in pants through a clenched jaw, sounding as
though he had to force each one out against his own will. Then his
eyes rolled into the back of his head, and his body twitched and
convulsed.

“They’re
trying to control him,” I said, “but I think he’s
fighting them off.”

Since I couldn’t
read his mind, I wasn’t exactly certain about that, but that
was how it looked.

“Then hurry,
before they win control,” Tristan said.

I grasped my dagger
with both hands and plunged it into Noah’s chest, right above
his heart. He groaned, and his body jerked just the slightest bit. If
I didn’t hurry, he could possibly break through Tristan’s
power, especially if he had the force of the sorcerers working on it.
I twisted the tip, poking around, then finally it hit against
something hard. With another twist and a flick of my wrist, the stone
popped out and rolled across the asphalt.

Noah’s body
immediately fell still. His eyes lost focus, the lids fluttered
closed, and his face went slack. But his heart still beat, slowly but
steadily.

“Let’s get
him to the safe house,” I said.

“I don’t
know if that’s a good idea,” Charlotte said.

“We can chain him
up. Bind him with magic.” I flicked my hand toward Owen. “If
he can hold Tristan down like he has before, he can surely contain
Noah.”

“I don’t
know if we can convert him, Alexis,” Sheree said.

“Not against his
will, but he
wanted
me to cut that stone out. I’ve seen
hope in Noah. We have to try! For Rina, if nothing else.”

I’d already lost
Solomon, her true love. I’d do everything I could to save her
son. To save Mom’s brother.

Owen grunted and
groaned as he made the portal that took us back to the safe house. As
soon as I passed through, I immediately ran up the stairs to check on
Dorian, Heather, and the others. Everyone but Sonya and Sasha were
asleep in the luxurious beds. The vampire sat by a fire, reading, and
Sasha lay on Dorian’s bed with one ear lifted and her tail
twitching when she saw me.

Not wanting to disturb
them, I tiptoed away and went downstairs to wait with the others for
Noah to regain consciousness.

Tristan and Jax had
taken Noah to the basement, to a room used for conversions where he
could be chained up. The seemingly barbaric treatment was for
everyone’s protection, including his own. Although he was
passed out now, he’d likely be irate and violent when he woke.

In the meantime, we all
sat in darkness, in the same living room where we’d gathered
before the men left for the fight that took Tristan away from me. I
remembered the powder blue carpet, the darker blue, velvet
upholstered couch and chairs that nobody had sat in then, the sounds
of a battle behind the heavily draped picture window. That had been
the last time I’d seen Stefan alive, and the last time I’d
see Tristan for seven years. I stared at the door to the library off
the side of the room, where Tristan had said goodbye to me and our
unborn baby.

We’d been
discussing our next plans and how we might extract information out of
Noah, when we’d fallen into one of those thick silences as
everyone became lost in their own thoughts.

“What’s
that sound?” I suddenly blurted, a faint rhythm catching my
attention. I sat up on Tristan’s lap, listening for signs from
the basement, but this strange
dut-dut-dut-dut
came from the
very room we sat in.