Page 82 of V for Vindictive

The Boogeyman

The pitch-black room suddenly burst with colorful light, wisps of it floating and fleeing in all directions. Then a second later, a swirling vortex took hold of the room, hitting the five of us with hurricane-strength winds.

Jo stood with her hip out and arm up, hair airborne and the summoning rock levitating above her palm. Her beautiful purple magic exploded in strobe-like bursts all around her, and the power throbbed and took her shape with a low buzzing hum. I’d never seen anything like it.

Totally badass.

Her once-dark eyes beamed a brilliant amber as she murmured something under her breath. It wasn’t English, that much I knew. Her flame-like irises, two stars caught in a sea of black, glided over to find mine. Our gazes locked before a shuddering pulse hit the air and a bright red symbol formed on the ground in front of us.

Perfect moment for some twelve-year-old caught in a woman’s body to say “I think it’s witchcraft!” but I managed to keep that little bit of crazy to myself.

Sensation slithered all over my body, stroking my flesh to attention—the ominous feeling of danger. I’d know that feeling anywhere. It woke the dormant power inside, rousing it from its slumber, and an answering throbechoed in my chest. Almost as if my power was responding to hers. Almost as if her power was a perfect match for mine.

The steady hum of magic intensified, drowning out every other sound, and then a figure flickered in and out of existence in front of us. The huge shape, one I’d unfortunately know anywhere, made my blood run cold.

He always did.

Eyes full of homicidal rage shined in darkness, and Eros was brought to his knees. A sound similar to a grunt but more animal than human left his throat. The air was thicker, entrenched in malice, and it seized me, body and soul, before I got my head in the game.

This was what we planned every day since Eros appeared, a real deadly pain in our asses and the ghost of a tragic past. I couldn’t let fear take hold of me, not now. Eros’s horrible bitch-ass life endedtoday, and I wouldn’t let him slither away like he did last time.

I was a different woman today than I was yesterday. Okay, not really, but I’d been solely responsible for destroying an evil dude’s laboratory. That meant I was better prepared to take charge and burn shit to the ground.

It was clear by the strained muscles along the elusive Dark Fae’s neck that he couldn’t move at all. All he had was his mouth and eyes from the way he ground his jaw and set his angry gaze on every person nearby, his neck never joining him in the look. Eros’s arms were pinned to his sides, his body held hostage to a power unseen, prisoner to a gleaming red symbol on the floor, and the powerful Dark Fae struggled to get himself free.

But whatever Jo did, it worked. Sure, it was a little anticlimactic for all the hell this bastard put us through; that it only took a bit of hair and a summoning stone—oh, and a random-ass femme fatale—to get him bound and at our mercy, but I wasn’t complaining. As someone who’dwon a few times on sheer luck and circumstance, it seemed fitting that’d be the way one of my greatest adversaries was brought down.

In the V’s-a-lucky-bitch style.

Still, you had to marvel at the irony of it all; how odd it was that the same way he’d nearly overcome me with magical binding would inevitably be the very same way he was later done in.

Pure fucking poetry.

I hadn’t sensed her move, but Jo was suddenly leaning in close from behind me, hands touching my shoulders. The heat she exuded soaked into my skin, and I shivered without intending to.

Must ask about her super cool magic and what it can do later.

Her sultry voice came next, the tantalizing slide of her hands down my back stealing my focus for a second. “I’m going to lend you my power so you can channel yours. All I need from you is to focus on what it is you want from him—the answers you need. Who he works for, why they sent him, who else is involved. Keep that in your head. Let it guide you,” she whispered into my ear, her seductive voice prickling the senses. “We don’t have long, but you’re a smart girl. You can do this better than any of the assholes in here.”

I thought girls wanted pretty things said to them. To be lavished with gifts, told they were beautiful, and taken on midnight strolls around a beautiful moon-lit lake. Shit like that. But this chick was won over by someone saying I was smart and capable of evil-assassin-who-lived-too-long destruction. That got my pulse going.

I moistened my lips and closed my eyes, ignoring the urge to ask her to go on.

Say more about me being smart…

Sloan appeared to shift in discomfort, jaw working, but I smiled at him to put his nerves at ease. And when Phillip took a step my direction, his furious eyes pinned to the woman presently hovering close to my ear like the devil on my shoulder, I quickly cut my eyes over to him.

“I’m fine,” I promised them, voice softer than I meant for it to sound.

Shit, this woman totally throws me off.

Phillip’s jaw clenched and unclenched, every muscle in his body flexed and visible, even his hands were wrapped into fists, but he backed off. His eyes never left me, but the Austrian didn’t try to intervene either, so I sighed a thankful breath I wouldn’t have to fight him while going up against the man of my nightmares.

The low growl of Eros resounded within the room, and my gaze was drawn back over to the trapped killer. His blazing eyes narrowed, the mask he wore still in place, and it gave me a powerful feeling to watch someone so formidable imprisoned by their own arrogance. Lifting my chin, I walked forward with Jo trailing me, her hands still touching my back. The caress of her magic continued with every step I took until I was inches from Eros.

Taking a knee, I stared the bastard right in the eyes, then yanked the mask down to expose the corrupt face beneath—the one I’d only seen once before.

Like I remembered, Eros had hints of a great beauty in his features, but they were corroded by evil. A pure sludge-like darkness oozed from his pores. A gruesome scar separated his top and bottom lip, and several old wounds marred his face. But the pretty eyes, strong jaw, and full lips didn’t totally fit the Boogeyman under my bed.

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