The Curse (Belador #3)(114)
Sar seemed oblivious to the way his guardian was trying to reach him, focused completely on him with deadly intent. “Everything takes time and you’re imposing on mine. I’ll say good-bye now.”
He was a ballsy bastard. Still grabbing at any way to stall him, she asked, “Think telling us good-bye is going to work? VIPER has an attack team closing in on this place.”
“What’s VIPER?” The first sign of worry crossed Sar’s face.
He really was a recluse to not know about VIPER. “VIPER is an army of people like us, some who are even more powerful,” Evalle said, wishing her threat about a team on the way hadn’t been a bluff.
Tzader came into her head. What have you got, Evalle?
We found Sar and he made these creatures, but he’s an insane Dalfour sorcerer.
A Dalfour? Ah, hell. Quinn’s hitting the minds of these things in short blasts but we’re losing ground and Trey’s hurt. I told our pilot to call for backup if we weren’t out of here in twenty minutes. He should be calling now but the closest team is fifteen minutes away. You can’t wait. Dalfours were serious head cases. Get out of there now!
Not without Tzader, Quinn and Trey.
Seeing the first crack in Sar’s confidence, Evalle tried once again to reason with Sar. “You’re out of moves, Sar. Call off your monsters and let’s talk before VIPER gets here.”
“I don’t think so. I have a better idea.” As if directing a command, Sar pointed a finger at the counter between them. A panel slid aside and the control center Evalle had been looking for appeared, complete with a monitor showing a video of the fight in the parlor. “I’ll send all my guardians to the parlor and if your people win, I’ll go quietly with you. If my guardians win, you get a chance to fight them. But I should mention that I keep my pets hungry.”
Well, crud. He was calling her and Casper’s bluff and putting them on the spot to prove they could stop him.
When Sar moved his hand to touch the button, Evalle threw a blast of kinetic energy at the panel, preventing his hand from reaching it.
No backlash from the kinetics down here. Excellent. It must have been the metal panels in the parlor. A high-tech alloy maybe.
Sar looked surprised, and amused, then whipped his hands back and forth, sending dark blue bottles of liquid off the counter and flying at Evalle and Casper.
She used her free hand to throw up a shield of energy. The liquid splashed against her shield, sizzling like acid as it slid down.
The sorcerer pointed at Casper, and the cowboy lifted off the ground then flew backwards. Casper roared in mid-air and flickered with the image of his highland warrior counterpart. Lightning sparked off his body. When he hit a tall cabinet filled with more blue bottles of liquid, the electrical energy shooting off his spirit image struck the cabinet and it exploded into a ball of fire.
Casper shifted into a shadow as fire from the cabinet climbed the wall of the lab.
Sar froze, staring at the flames, terror overshadowing the crazy haze in his eyes. If the bastard’s story about his family and their deaths was true, fire had to be his worst fear.
Evalle didn’t waste her opportunity to reach that panel. She had to release the kinetic energy she was using to shield the control panel from Sar to redirect her power.
His shocked gaze cleared a second too soon.
Just as she threw a kinetic hit of energy to shove him back from the controls, Sar slapped the silver button, laughing … but lost his smile when he flew backwards into the arms of his chained guardian.
The creature grabbed the sorcerer in its curled claws and bit off the top half of Sar’s head.
His eyes remained wide open with horror.
Casper had resumed human form and slammed the heavy steel door to the hallway shut, then threw the deadbolt. Good thing, since two seconds later the creatures Sar had released from their cells screamed and pounded on the door to the lab. They were either hungry, as he’d said, or they wanted their own bite of Sar. She couldn’t blame them.
Evalle hoped those things couldn’t reach Tzader, Quinn and Trey, but she and Casper had only one way out now.
Up.
Smoke filled the room and burned her eyes. Casper appeared next to her, weapons in hand. “Can you open the shields on the parlor?”
“I can’t find anything marked on this panel. I’m afraid I’ll send those things to the parlor.” She choked on her next smoke-filled breath and started coughing.
“Sure as hell can’t escape through that hallway. Let’s go upstairs and find a way out, then we’ll figure out how to help Tzader and the others.”
These half-human creatures would be burned alive.
She had a moment of regret over the little orange-eyed guy with the bat wings, but she had a team to save. Besides, that little creature might be just as dangerous as the rest of these. Though some voice deep inside her argued that everything deserved a chance.
Using her power to form a shield between the two of them and the chained monster, she and Casper rushed up two flights of stairs to the door on the top level. Fire nipped at their heels and sucked the oxygen from the room. At the upstairs door, Evalle rushed inside a room with a wall of monitors. Smoke clouded the images, but she could make out the hallway between the parlor and the lab. She got a glimpse of Sar’s creatures attacking one another just before the picture turned completely gray. Images on the monitors fuzzed and one by one they went blank. Was the fire racing through the building, destroying wires?