Page 127 of Witch Undecided
Chapter Thirty-Seven
We huddled beyond some bushes outside the wire fencing to the decrepit-looking site. According to Tor, the Partridge Project had begun three years ago, but from what I’d seen, not much progress had been made. Construction equipment was stationed beyond the fence, visible through the swirling snow. It was a weekday but not a single worker was visible. Okay, so it was snowing, and maybe they didn’t work in this weather, but my gut told me no one had worked here for a while.
“It’s a front,” Sloane said, swiping across her phone and holding it out to show us a photograph from an old newspaper announcing the project.
The place looked exactly the same in the photograph. Same buildings still standing, no new structures.
Sloane tapped on her phone again. “Okay, so Conah just sent me some photos of the place from before Partridge took over.”
“Conah?”
“Yeah, I called him as soon as we knew where we were headed.” She frowned at her phone, trying to shield it from the snowfall. “So this place was all factories. Was there anything in your vision, anything significant about the structure they’re being held in? We have your connection, but we can’t risk having to backtrack on ourselves if your beacon fails.”
She had a point. We had no idea who we were up against and the infection could burn out of me at any moment, severing my connection to the varga.
“It’s a dark room, bare pipes and brick, beams and a skylight.”
She studied the photos Conah had sent. “Bingo. There’s only one building with a skylight. It’s on the other side of the lot.”
The snow was getting heavier. Good, we’d have cover.
“We need wire cutters,” Leif said.
Jessie held up her hands and grinned. “No, we don’t.”
Two minuteslater we were in the lot. Backup had arrived in the form of pack wolves who had the lot surrounded. One howl and they’d descend on the bad guys like a pack of wolves—pun intended.
Sloane led the way toward the building with the skylight and I followed, the humming in my veins confirming we were on the right track. We rushed from cover to cover, getting closer and closer to our target: a tower with a balcony and a single door. It looked like a mini lighthouse. It’d probably been used as a control room or a guard house for the lot at some time, but from what I’d seen in my vision, the inside had been gutted.
We came to a halt, backs to the wall of a squat building opposite the tower.
I grabbed Sloane’s arm. “They’re in there. I can feel it.”
“I don’t sense any eyes on us,” Poppy said. “I think we’re clear.”
“We’re not taking any chances,” Sloane said. “We do this stealth for now.”
Someone screamed, and then there was a blinding light and a figure materialized outside the tower. He was dragging something. A woman. She was limp, body trailing on the ground as he lugged her across the snow by her hair.
I needed to get a better look at him. To see his face, but the snow was a howling blizzard now. Fucking hell, it wasn’t even winter yet.
Where was he taking her? He was headed for the fence, and then another blinding light and he was gone.
“Motherfucker.” Sloane looked back at us. “The guy was using magic. Not sure what kind without getting close. But you guys need to hang back until we’ve scoped the place out and deactivated any spell traps.”
“Do it,” Tor said.
“Ready, Elites?” Sloane looked from me to Jessie and then Poppy.
“Ready,” we said in unison.
We made a dash for the tower, keeping low, using the snowfall as cover. Five seconds and we were in the shadow of the building.
Jessie pressed her hands to the door. “Spell-locked. Chaos.”
“The Order?” Poppy shook her head. “What the fuck?”
“Why the hell would the Order want shifters?” Sloane said what we were all thinking.
