How Beauty Saved the Beast (Tales of the Underlight) (16 page)

Chapter Thirteen

Blood slithered down Hauk’s back in a gruesome cascade as three men dragged him to a table. His head was down, unmoving. Jolie couldn’t tell if he was conscious or not.

The men turned to face them.

Mercy took a shot, dropping one guard before they could react.

Jolie ran into the room, heading for the left guard. She plowed into him and caught his ankle with her own. He went down.

Hauk started to fall. She scooped an arm around him as his dead weight dropped into her. She braced herself to hold him upright. “Hauk! Hauk!”

He turned a blurry expression toward her, his mouth parting as if to speak.

Jolie was yanked backward by her hair, forcing her to let Hauk go. He collapsed to the ground beside her. Arms locked around her as the hot metal of an oversized muzzle pressed against her temple.

Another shot boomed; another Hand of Atropos fell.

“Put the gun down,” the man said calmly.

Mercy hesitated as the strange barrel waved in front of Jolie’s face.

“Don’t,” Jolie said. “You can hit him.” It was a crazy-hard shot three inches from her head, but they were in a win or lose here. And Mercy was damn good.

Mercy hesitated. Then shook her head as she lowered her weapon. “That’s a mini-flamethrower. I could blow you up.”

Jolie sucked in a furious breath and studied Hauk. He’d been tortured, that was clear, but so far she only saw bleeding wounds, no new burns. The fact that they’d brought fire to taunt him with made her seethe inside. Not that there was jack she could do about it at the moment.

Four more Atropos marched into the room. Mercy was disarmed, slammed into a wall and frisked. Jolie closed her eyes slowly and opened them again to find Hauk’s weary blue eyes looking up at her. He’d struggled up to sitting, but his skin was a greenish gray. His shoulders hunched and his muscles shook like he might fall over at any moment.

And something was deeply wrong with his hand.

“I’m sorry,” she mouthed. She didn’t know how, but these guys were so gonna pay for what they’d done.

* * *

Pissed or not, Jolie had come for him. Despite the pain and the location and every shit part of a shitty day, Hauk wanted to smile.

“Sit them down,” the doctor ordered. “Put him back on the table.”

Mercy was dragged to a chair. The fire-wielding torturer kept a tight hold on Jolie, continuing to threaten Hauk with her even though sitting upright caused waves of pain and dizziness to rattle through him like a pinball game of knives.

In a rage, he might still be able to take them all. If the doctor was right and Hauk now knew where the rages came from, could he cause one?

Two Atropos lifted him by the shoulders. The knife wound ripped open and gushed a fresh pulse of blood as he sucked back a scream. Raging would knit it closed again.

But was he putting Jolie and Mercy at more of a risk from himself than from Ananke? Ananke might leave them unhurt. Jolie was the daughter of a member, and Mercy was police. The Order would have to think carefully before doing permanent harm to either of them.

As if she could read his thoughts, Jolie said, “I asked Travis to take another look at the video from Afghanistan.”

“Quick talking, now,” the torturer said.

Hauk put weight on his feet. He would fight without a rage. They weren’t some godly blessing—they were a chemical bomb going off in his head, turning him into a nightmare and endangering everyone around him. That video proved it.

But Jolie didn’t quit talking. “You already had a mark of Atropos. It was hidden inside a tattoo on your forearm.”

Hauk studied her eyes to see if she was telling the truth. Her statement sounded crazy, but he supposed it was possible. The simple lines of an Atropos tattoo could easily be hidden inside the tribal-style art he preferred, and he wouldn’t have known to look for it.

“Your squad had tattoos, too.”

The torturer shook her. “I said shut up!” He threw his free arm across her throat, cutting off her air.

Jolie scrabbled at his fingers, trying to breathe as shock and pain filled her features. With the last of his strength, Hauk flung himself forward and threw a punch.

Blood exploded from the torturer’s nose. He released Jolie.

She dropped down out of his arms.

Hauk collapsed beside her, his face slamming to the cold ground. His wounds screamed from the fresh assault, but still he forced his fingers to scratch at the etched floor as he tried to find some purchase, some way to get back on his feet.

“Asshole,” the torturer said. The flamethrower hissed in ignition, and Hauk braced for the burn.

Jolie yelled, “No!” Her weight landed on his back and {his>

He struggled to knock her off, but she held firm and he was so damn weak.

Flame scorched the air above them. She screamed.

He twisted, trying to get her beneath him.

“Not her!” the doctor yelled.

The fire went out.

This time she didn’t resist as Hauk rolled them over and pushed Jolie’s back to the ground, smothering any fire that might’ve caught on her clothing or hair. “What the hell were you doing?” he yelled. He couldn’t see any damage to her front, but her face contorted in pain.

She ignored the question and spit out rapidly, “They were trying to activate your tattoo. Before the fire. You didn’t just murder your squad. You need to know that.”

“Separate them,” the doctor said.

Gorgeous green eyes stared up at him in pain and fear. And faith.

Jolie had faith in him, both versions of him. So much that she’d taken a fire blast to tell him so.

Guards grabbed him by the shoulders to pry them apart, but her hands still clung to him.

Hauk loved this woman. Would do anything for her.

He turned his eyes to the sky and quit running from magic. “Allfather Odin, if that’s really you…come and get me.”

He felt it this time, like a spirit invading him, burning from the inside out. He wanted to kick it out, to stay in control, but he thought of Jolie and let go.

The vision in his right eye dimmed until he could only see from one side. The throb in his hand and crushing pain in his body softened into an electric hum that ran through him. His thoughts buzzed in tune with his body, dimming to two ideas: Eliminate the threat. Protect what was his.

Eight of them and one of him? No problem.

* * *

Fire. Effing. Hurt.

Heat blistered down Jolie’s neck and right shoulder, bringing tears to her eyes as she hung on to Hauk like a safety line. He’d survived being engulfed in this pain. She’d barely been touched by it; she could handle a little burn.

“I’ve got this. You’re safe,” his low voice rumbled, calm and steady as ever. She blinked her eyes to clear the moisture and realized he’d shifted.

But something was different. He seemed lucid.

He smiled and set her gently on the ground then reached up and slammed two guards together by their heads.

They dropped beside her.

Behind them, Mercy yelled as her chair toppled and fist crunched against bone. Jolie turned to find her up and fighting.

Jolie needed to get up and fight, too. Legs shaky, she started to stand.

Hauk swiped a magic stick from the ground. Another Hand of Atropos approached, and he crushed the wand against the man’s arm.

Once again, the Hand of Atropos crumbled forward, the hold of the tattoo broken.

Hauk didn’t notice and continued running through soldiers.

The magic-fallen soldier looked up at Jolie with an expression full of confusion. Th {conhis.e doctor yelled for Atropos to attack.

This one clutched his stomach and ran from the room.

“It breaks their magic, too,” Jolie yelled, knowing Mercy would hear and hoping Hauk understood. She doubted the reprieve was permanent, but she scrambled on the ground to pick up a wand of her own anyway.

Seeing the way of things, the doctor ran away.

Hauk picked up the blood-spattered guy who’d torched them and tossed him into a wall. The impact of the body against cement crunched in bone-shattering death.

Hauk turned to her and Mercy and said, “Let’s go.”

The three of them rushed from the room into eerily empty halls.

Hauk plowed ahead with no attempt at stealth. Up the stairs and into the main floor. One corridor over, and they were at the vaulted-ceiling foyer, the wooden double doors to their escape less than ten yards away.

Doors that were blocked by a dozen Atropos and three members of Ananke themselves.

Hauk, Mercy and Jolie stopped to assess the situation.

Pierce MacArthur stood front and center, like a general before his army. Jolie had known him all her life as a mild-mannered acquaintance of her father’s, though something about the iron gray of his stare had always given her the wiggins. She’d recently found out he was also a wizard, or whatever Ananke called their magic-wielding leaders, and could cast some hefty mind-control on the fly. With a few words, he’d nearly turned Hauk against her during their last encounter.

Pierce nodded once in acknowledgment, bobbing his short gray hair without his stare ever leaving them. In his left hand he carried the bronze drop spindle he used as a focus item to work his magic.

Jolie stepped forward with the magic-breaking staff, just as Mercy stepped forward with her gun.

Hauk looked left, and Jolie followed his gaze. Mercy wasn’t the only one with a gun. Down the hall, half a dozen agents had pistols aimed their way.

Pierce stepped forward. “As you can see, we’ve got you well-covered.” He narrowed his eyes at Hauk. “Can you hear me in there, or is it only destruction on your mind?”

Hauk took a step forward. “I’m listening.”

Jolie was surprised by the clarity in his voice.

Pierce appeared to be as well. “Interesting. We have arrived at an impasse. The likelihood of the three of you getting out of here alive is not great. But I imagine you can do quite a bit of damage before that happens. And you, Mr. Haukon, the one we want, might still get out. So I offer you a trade. I’ll let the two of them go if you stay with me.” He smiled smoothly. “If it helps, I’ll even throw that little blonde in the bargain.”

“Keep her,” Jolie growled.

Hauk kept a steady gaze. “Ashley can stay or go as she pleases. We both know that.”

It was a relief to hear he’d figured that out, but Jolie still feared the threat to Mercy and herself was enough to activate Hauk’s abundant hero complex. She hadn’t made it this far to lose him now, so she stepped up. “I’m just going to keep coming back, so I say right now is as good a time as any for a showdown.”

Maybe she shouldn’t speak for anybody else, but Mercy stepped up to the line. She was all in, too.

Jolie twirled the baton through her fingers. “I’ve seen what this does to your guys. All I have to do is touch them with it, and your hold is broken. How many of your mind slaves do you think will stay and fight when they understand what you’ve done to them?”

Hauk stared down at the baton in his hand.

Pierce laughed. “The control break is so brief, by the time they’re standing up, they belong to us again. So how do you expect to take out nearly thirty of my soldiers with one of those two sticks?” Pierce waved a dismissive hand as Hauk ignored him, engrossed in picking at the wooden side of his wand with his thumbnail. “Besides,” Pierce continued. “We can do the same to your soldier. Or the only one who counts, anyway. And when his magic is broken, he has nothing to restart it. How long do you think he can stay standing upright then?”

Hauk turned Jolie to face him. “If I tell you to leave, you’re not going to listen, are you? You’re going to stay and try to save me anyway.”

Jolie arched an eyebrow. “Oh look, he can be taught. Yes, of course I am.”

He lifted his baton to show a line with a triangle sitting on it, like a stick-figure hat, that he’d scratched into the wood. “Remember the magical burst when we broke one in the theater?” he muttered. “This will amplify it.”

She had the sense “we” didn’t refer to her, but to the beast. Were he and his rage-self communicating? And did rage-Hauk have a plan other than “smash”? “Did you draw a rune?”

“You’re going to have to carry me out,” was all he said.

“
What
?”

Instead of answering, Hauk bull-rushed the corridor with the gunmen. Shots thundered, slamming into him, but he kept moving forward.

Jolie ran after him.

Hauk toppled the first gunman. The soldiers fell on him, dog-piling up like a football team. But he didn’t fight them.

Wood cracked as he snapped the wand into jagged shards. Yellow sparks engulfed the mass of bodies, zinging madly around them. Painful howls resounded as every bit of magic in the vicinity broke down, crippling the men.

Jolie found a tribal-tattooed arm and pulled until she’d extracted Hauk’s head and shoulders. He crawled forward; she shoved bodies off of him as the Hands of Atropos slunk away. As soon as his feet were clear, she stuck an arm under his shoulders and lifted him to standing. “Stupid self-sacrificing dumbass.” But his plan had worked. The entire hallway was clear of enemies.