Page 127 of Darkness

This time, no lust came from Sykes nor frustration from Jessa. Nothing from Morrisey either. In fact, Farren couldn’t feel anyone in the house. Oh, fuck! What happened? For the first time in his life, in either realm, he was totally alone, disconnected from all others. “What are you doing?” Make it stop!

Morrisey gave Farren a sly side-eye. “This time, instead of blocking them, I blocked you.”

Farren’s heart thundered in his ears. “Please, never do that again.”

***

A weight lifted from Farren’s shoulders.

Morrisey managed, through trial and error, to shield the entire house from outside detection. No travelers outside could sense anyone inside. A few additional touches by Colm, and humans who noticed the house would feel repulsed and immediately turn away. Travelers might be curious, but even they wouldn’t sense the deception unless they were part of its creation.

All human mates and children were left with a few traveler guards for protection once Morrisey deemed the house safe.

Morrisey, Farren, Sykes, Colm, and Jessa drove in Sykes’s SUV to the FBI offices, careful not to strain Morrisey’s newfound teleportation skills while he also worked to maintain security at the safe house.

Taking Jessa posed a risk if Morrisey couldn’t block Asher’s efforts to control her while working on a way to sever the bond completely. Still, Morrisey insisted she come.

With Leary no longer taking their calls, time to visit in person.

No guard manned the gate. In fact, the gate stood open. Few cars sat in the parking lot. The place gave off a definite ghost town ambiance. Where were all the other FBI agents who worked in the building?

Oh, right. Protocol. What excuse did they use this time? A bomb threat?

Hackles up, weapons in hand, Farren strode toward the front door and the glass entry booth, the others following in his wake. No guard waited to buzz them in.

“Come with me.” He led the group around the building to the back. The rear door sported a card reader. Neither Morrisey, Farren, nor Sykes’s badges activated the locking mechanisms.

“Give me a moment.” Sykes kneeled, putting himself eye-to-eye with the reader. He caressed the device like a lover.

“Stop, Sykes. You’re turning me on,” Jessa purred.

Sykes grinned. “Glad to return the favor.” With a distinct click, the lock popped open. He held the door open for all to enter.

Farren and Morrisey took point, with Sykes bringing up the rear. Colm’s knowledge might be helpful at some point, as might Jessa’s wiles, but they were also the weakest links, weapons-wise. For now, they remained in a protected position.

Low lights illuminated the baseboards. “Emergency lighting,” Sykes muttered. “Which means the elevators aren’t working. Where do you think the asshole might be, if he’s here at all?”

“He’s below us.” Jessa balled her hands into fists. “I can feel him.”

“He’s not alone,” Colm added.

No, he wasn’t. Multiple travelers of varying degrees of humanity waited below. Though Farren hadn’t met Asher yet, the sickly black of his aura permeated the air. While Morrisey was born Tenebris, Asher inflicted darkness on himself.

“I don’t know how he got in or who his guide might be, but hopefully, they don’t know about the stairs we’re about to take. Sykes found them while running computer cables back in the day. They didn’t look to have been used in the past few decades.”

Morrisey furrowed his brow. “You kept this from Leary.”

Again, Farren exchanged a look with Sykes. “We kept a lot from him. We’re not disloyal, but some information should be on a need-to-know basis.”

“And none of the humans have knowledge of this? What about old diagrams? Blueprints?”

“As the sublevels were originally built as an emergency bunker, the plans are classified.” Farren grinned. “And you’ve never met a computer hacker with the skills of Sykes.”

Sykes grinned. “It’s a gift. Literally. Now, come on. I think they’re waiting.” He led them down a long hallway to a door labeled “Storage,” which in itself was odd since most doors here didn’t have signs. He opened the door on metal racks, lined up wall to wall in the roughly ten-foot by ten-foot space, and grabbed flashlights off a shelf. From another, he doled out tasers.

Morrisey explained their use to Colm and Jessa while Farren helped Sykes move a section of the floor and shine a light into the darkness beneath. Sykes hit a wall switch, activating emergency lighting in the shaft. Dust motes caught the light.

Jessa coughed.

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