Page 118 of Fated In Forever
We’d landed inside the wards, which—as I looked around, my mouth hanging open—had undergone a serious magical upgrade.
The compound was packed with thralls, some standing out in the hot sun baking, most gathered in the meager shade of the buildings, packed together like sardines. I pressed myself into Malachi, my stomach roiling from the smell.
They can’t see us, we’re protected by my glamour. He paused, taking in the sheer numbers. Hundreds. Thousands, possibly, given we could only see this small area.Give Blake and Riordan the numbers, they’ll need to be heavily shielded when they dematerialize inside.
I sent Blake the information, staying to the point as much as possible, trying to keep most of my horror to myself.
Where do we even start?I looked wildly from one building to another. I only knew the layout of this compound from our last visit, and had no idea where to begin.
Malachi’s mouth tightened.I know exactly where they are, come on.His fingers banded around my wrist, tugging me toward a low, nondescript building sandwiched between the main warehouse and two outbuildings, and then I remembered.
He’d been held captive here for days.
We dodged around the few lone, empty eyed thralls baking in the sun, avoiding the shade altogether, because we’d never make it through those closely-packed throngs. The smell was mind boggling, the sheer numbers staggering.
How many do you think?I asked as we navigated the yard like a minefield. A thousand?
At least. And in a matter of weeks. You said he brought more to the chateau?
A hundred or so. He used them like a shield, drawing power from them until there was nothing left. These thralls look younger though. Kids.Recognition niggled at the edges of my thoughts, but I couldn’t quite pin the memory down.
There was nothing but crackling silence on the other end of our bond, as if Malachi was too angry to formulate a single word, his grip tightening as we circumnavigated a few old, dusty vehicles, more thralls, rounding the corner of our target building, and then…
The smell hit me like a wall—a sweet, reeking wall of decay.
Bodies were piled higher than my head behind the building, rotting in the sun, so many that for a second, my stupefied thoughts tripped over themselves before Malachi blocked the sight with his body, pressing me to his chest, arms wrapped around me so I couldn’t see a thing.
He must have intensified the shield of glamour, because some of the reek faded, but the smell was deep in my nose now, coating my mouth and my lungs and I gagged, doubling over to heave a mouthful of water into the dusty ground.
These were kids, younger than me, younger than even Angel.
And their shirts boasted a distinctive logo. One I recognized all too well from my days schlepping drinks at a certain dive bar downtown.
Thorndale University.
The backdoors swung open and two familiar—well, vaguely familiar, now—forms emerged, dragging anotherbody. Alistair and Dante, little more than tattered flesh and fabric hanging off skeletal bone, tossed the desiccated corpse up onto the top of the pile with inhuman strength, then turned around and went back inside.
As if this was just another Tuesday.
Another victim. A girl, a sparkly bracelet hanging off her skeletal wrist.
These kids came from New York. From Thorndale. And I had an idea of who had been helping Ravok this entire time.Vincent Valentine. A snake whose existence I’d completely forgotten about.
I looked up at Malachi, that name on the end of my tongue…
And that’s when Angel screamed.
56
RIORDAN
With Evie’s warning ringing in my head, I scented the dead from here, but otherwise, the glamoured protections around the compound were perfect. Empty buildings, tall, unmown grass, waving in the dry breeze, a no trespassing sign, flapping off a phone pole.
“No wonder we surveilled this place a dozen times and the spotters reported it abandoned.” I murmured. “Ravok’s magic is powerful.”
“Visual sweeps,” Blake whispered, “are never enough. I should have come myself and done a manual check.”
“And gotten yourself killed.” I said, no judgement in my voice. “Besides, now we know where they are and what the situation is.” Knowing Evie was inside that ward had turned my body into a live wire, because from the flashed images she’d sent Blake and I, the compound was a fucking horror show.
