Kill Switch (Blue-Eyed Bomb Book 2) Read online

  We needed Muses to come and work his magic on the mother to see if anything was left in her mind to extract. Anything that could help us track down her remaining child, provided she was still alive. If she wasn’t, at least we could bring the killer to justice.

  My creepy uncle had already been dispatched when we’d found the body, so it wasn’t too long after that he showed up at the house. He strolled in like there wasn’t a killer on the loose that needed to be hunted down and stopped in front of the mother, assessing her. Then, without permission, he placed his hands on her shoulders and leaned in close to her, his eyes probing hers for the answers he desired.

  “Your children—where are they?” She winced in pain, once again clutching her head. “Your son was here recently. We know this. I want to know who he is. I want a name.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Yes you do. It’s in there. Try harder. Search deeper.”

  I remember the moment it all unraveled for her. The very second that she called forth a memory of her son—one that our attacker had not been able to erase, or suppress, or whatever he’d done to trick her into forgetting her kids—everything came back. The sheer terror that filled her eyes would have been enough, but I felt it too. All of it. It coursed through me as though it were my own, and I was nearly brought to my knees as she was, paralyzed by the truth.

  “Simon…where is he? Where’s my baby?”

  Muses looked down at her without an ounce of sympathy in his gaze.

  “Murdered.”

  She choked back a sob, slapping her hand over her mouth to keep her mournful cry from escaping.

  “Helena? Where is my Helena?”

  “Taken,” I said, crouching down in front of her. “She was taken by the man who killed your son.”

  Tears streamed down her face as she looked at me beseechingly, silently asking for my help. And she would have it. I would not rest until I found whoever had done this.

  “We’re going to find her,” I pledged. “Both her and the being that took her.”

  “She’s special,” she said softly, grabbing my hands in hers. “They both were. I don’t understand how this could have happened to them…”

  “Your son was a null.” I said it with such confidence that it surprised her.

  “Yes. He was.”

  “He was not killed with magic.” She nodded frantically, biting her lip to keep from crying. “What is special about your daughter?”

  “She’s a witch—she’s just coming into her powers—but she can already call forth spells that witches three times her age can hardly muster the power for.” I looked over my shoulder at the ring of warriors standing around us. Their expressions confirmed what I feared. This was no random kidnapping. She was taken for a purpose. With that knowledge, I turned back to the mother, whose tear-stained face was only inches from mine. “There is something else you should know,” she started, the pallor of her face now a sickening white. “This town—the beings here have come here for a reason. The children here are special.”

  “All of them?”

  She nodded.

  “Especially the girls.”

  My mind was reeling with the implications of that statement.

  “Muses,” I said, still looking at the desperate woman before me. “I think you need to go visit a few more houses.”

  Chapter Three

  By the time the day was done, we’d visited over one hundred and seventy-five homes in town. At least a quarter of them were missing one or more children. All of them were girls.

  “Anyone else thinking what I’m thinking?” I asked the group, not really wanting my suspicions confirmed, yet needing that all the same.

  “They are being collected for a purpose,” Alek said, his voice full of contempt.

  “Exactly.”

  “He said he was taking her to Chicago,” Nico added. “So, if we’re lucky, she’s still alive and in the city right now.”

  “And if we’re not?” I countered, shooting him a cynical expression.

  “Then we find the bastard that stole these girls right out from under their parents’ noses and we kill him. After I torture him, of course.”

  “Who says you get the pleasure?”

  “Because we can’t afford you nuking half of the Windy City to get the job done.”

  “I can kick ass without blowing shit up.”

  The smile he gave me was full of challenge.

  “We’ll see about that.”

  There was still more to be done in Iowa, but it was decided that Muses and I would return to Chicago to start hunting down the girls that were taken. Alek, Nico, and TS were to remain behind and deal with the fallout Muses had left in his wake. There were distraught supernaturals that needed to be pacified: Alek’s and TS’ specialty.

  As I made my way to the vehicle, making sure to keep Muses at arm’s length, I looked back to see TS watching me go. His face held concern; he knew how much I despised my uncle. He knew what he had done. I forced a tight smile and a wave, then turned my attention to where I was headed—the last place I wanted to be.

  Trapped in a car for any amount of time with Muses promised to be pure hell.

  I climbed in the passenger side to find his long, lithe frame nestled elegantly into his seat. His cold eyeliner-lined eyes staring as he smiled at me like the serpent he was. A deadly one at that.

  “Don’t forget to buckle up, Sapphira.” He laughed as soon as the words left his mouth. The sound was smooth and sultry, but it held an edge of insanity that could not be denied.

  “Just drive the fucking car. And fast.”

  “In a hurry to get away from me already?”

  “I was in a hurry to get away from you the second you showed up,” I muttered to myself, knowing damn well he’d hear me.

  He laughed again.

  “Perhaps we need to start fresh, niece.” He turned to assess my reaction, then turned onto the highway, headed east.

  “How about we just turn up the radio as loud as it goes and not talk?” I reached for the knob but was cut short by a hand on mine. In a split second, I wrenched it away from him and cowered against the passenger door, pressed as tightly against it as possible.

  “Let’s get something straight right now, okay? You don’t get to touch me. Ever.”

  He returned his hand to the steering wheel and stared out the windshield. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I felt something emanating off of him. Disappointment? Anger? Or maybe it was regret.

  “You do realize that I can touch you without inspiring you, don’t you?”

  “That’s really super that you can control your shit, Muses, but I’m still going to take a hard pass on finding out if that’s true or not. I’m sure you can appreciate why.”

  “Frankly, the reason eludes me, niece. Perhaps you’d care to enlighten me?”

  “You can’t be fucking serious.”

  “And yet I am.”

  “You really don’t know why I loathe you? Why I want you to burn in a fiery inferno? Which, by the way, I could accommodate you with.”

  “I’m all too aware of what you’re capable of, Sapphira. I have seen what happens to you when you are angered.”

  I shrunk in my seat, the memory of Little Church flashing through my mind.

  “I have control over it now,” I said softly.

  He shot me a sideward glance.

  “And the world rejoices.” His droll response pulled me from my memories and stoked the fire within me. The one that wanted to see him burn.

  “I can’t wait for you to meet her. Maybe our roles will reverse then.”

  “Her?”

  “Yeah, her. Let’s not pretend that you didn’t eavesdrop on the conversation I had with my dad at the warehouse.”

  “I heard it. You did not, however, go into specifics.”

  “I don’t need to. All you need to know is that you should approach me with a healthy fucking dose of caution from now on. And keep your hands to yourself.”
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  “Tell me something, Sapphira, do you think it was my idea to do what I did to you after Little Church?”

  “No. I don’t. But Dad had no choice. He needed to know what happened for the greater good.”

  “Then why do you only harbor resentment toward me? I did not choose to do what I did.”

  “No,” I replied, turning angry eyes to him. “But you sure as fuck relished in the experience, didn’t you?” Silence. “I’m surprised you didn’t blow a load in your pants. If there is such a thing as a look of evil joy, that’s what you had on your face while you stared at me and forced me to reveal everything surrounding what happened in Little Church.”

  “I did as I was instructed to do. No more. No less.”

  “Really? Dad told you to poke around at all of those memories?”

  “Your mind is like your mother’s. It is harder to navigate. I inspired what I did in an attempt to work around that detail.”

  “You humiliated me! You made me look childish and petty and unstable!”

  His dark eyes turned to me.

  “I exposed the reason behind what you did, Sapphira. It is not my fault that it happened to be childish and petty, therefore making you look unstable. If you want to hate me for revealing those facts to all in attendance that night, that is your right. But perhaps the one you are truly upset with is yourself. You eliminated a town full of people because the boy you loved was in love with someone else. That is childish and petty. And your response to it accurately displayed just how unstable you were.”

  “They put me in a cage because of what you made me say that night!”

  “And that was exactly where they should have put you until they better knew how to deal with your condition—your lack of integration. Had your father listened to me when I told him I could help you, perhaps you could have been freed far sooner, but he didn’t. He thought he was protecting you—from me.”

  I could feel the blood drain from my face.

  “Help me how?” My words were barely a whisper.

  “I could feel the familiar press of two entities in one mind. Your mother’s is the same. And though fascinating, it comes at a price, one she is all too familiar with. You can only suppress the other—fight it—for so long. Your mother was fortunate in her experience. She had help from a little magic to cage her beast until she was ready to coexist with it. You had no such help, so you suffered. Greatly, it would seem. I was certain that I could help the two of you integrate at the time; find a way to mediate until you could coexist as your mother and her wolf do. Sadly, I was never afforded that chance.”

  “You wanted to help me?” I asked, unable to hide the incredulity in my tone. “Because you’re such a charitable being?”

  His neutral expression fell to one of irritation.

  “As I have said before, your mind is a fascinating place, Sapphira. Being in there is reward enough.”

  I sat in the passenger seat of the car while we sped down the interstate, trying to wrap my head around all he’d just said. The worst part of all was that it was true. It had been my fault, not his. Though his reaction to my admissions had been crude and inappropriate, that was who Muses was. But to know that he might have been able to fix me and save me the suffering I’d endured for those years was a tough pill to swallow. Especially since I had been the cause of that outcome. My father had kept him at bay to protect me, thinking I was doing well enough on my own. If I had told him that I was barely hanging on—if I’d let him in instead of pushing him away—things could have been so different. Instead, it took endangering the lives of those I loved and a near-death experience to fix what Muses claimed he could have so easily.

  What a fucking mess the truth had unveiled.

  I didn’t know what to say, my mind too cluttered with possible responses, none of which left my mouth. Instead, I gazed out the window as the rural surroundings slowly grew to urban heights. Not long after that, we were deep in the heart of Chicago, winding our way back to the warehouse.

  I practically raced up the stairs, an armful of photographs tucked tightly to my chest—photos we had amassed from obscure, tucked away places in the victims’ homes. Evidence of the kidnappings that had taken place; faces of the girls who had been taken. I was desperate to escape Muses, if only for a minute, and eager to get started finding the missing supernaturals. I’d come up with a potential plan in the car. I hoped it would work, though it was a long shot.

  Unfortunately, I was going to have to wait a bit longer to execute it.

  I slid the heavy metal door aside and walked into the warehouse to find four bright-eyed faces staring at me. One I knew. The others I didn’t.

  “Phira!” Gabe called, running toward me. Before I could even reply, he scooped me up in his arms and hugged me tightly. When he put me back down, his hands lingered at my waist.

  “I thought you were in Detroit? With Pierson?”

  “I was. I just got back a little bit ago. Your uncle worked fast—said he had all he needed from me for now and that he would be in touch once he knew something.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  His expression fell.

  “You seem disappointed to see me.”

  “No! Not at all, just surprised. It’s been a long day already and it isn’t over yet,” I said, trying to recover from my social faux pas. “Of course I’m happy to see you.” I reached up onto my toes and kissed him lightly, then pulled away the second I heard Muses enter the room.

  Helpful or not, my uncle was still a total buzzkill.

  “I see the welcome wagon has greeted you,” he said as he passed. “Perhaps you can pull yourself away from your pet long enough to say hello to the Fates. They’ve been very excited about meeting you, and I mean that in the most non-sexual way possible, just so there’s no confusion.” He looked back over his shoulder at me with a devilish grin.

  Yep…right back to being a creepy asshole.

  I looked past Gabe to the wall of three standing near the kitchen area. There was a similarity to the trio, as though they were all born of the same mother, but I knew that wasn’t true. Aside from two sets of twins, Ares had only produced one set of brothers, and there were only two of them. Then I realized what Muses had said: meet the Fates. Things quickly made much more sense. Their mothers were sisters. Each of the guys was born of one of the three original Greek Fates.

  “Hi,” I said with an awkward wave.

  The tallest one, who stood in the middle, smiled in return. The slightly shorter brunet to his right waved back. And the even shorter one on his left gave me a shy grin while fiddling with the sheathed blade strapped to his leg.

  “Meeting isn’t really the right word,” the tall one said, stepping toward me. “We’ve met before. When you were very young.”

  “We came to see your father not long after you were born,” the one to his right added.

  “I got to hold you,” the smallest of the three said, his voice much softer and quieter than the others. “You liked playing with the dimple in my chin.” His big brown eyes stared into mine for a second before he looked away, a slight pink hue warming his cheeks.

  “I’m Ferris, and these two are Cy and Zale,” the tall one said, pointing to the men on his right and left respectively.

  “Phira,” I said, as though they weren’t already aware of that fact. The three said nothing in return, making the interaction painfully awkward. “Sooo…what do you guys do here, other than put up with Muses’ shit?”

  “I resent that,” Muses drawled from the tattered couch on the far end of the room.

  “Mission accomplished, then.”

  I looked back to the trio to find Ferris wearing an amused expression, Cy smiling wide, and Zale covering his mouth to stifle his laughter.

  “She’s funny,” my shy uncle finally said, breaking the momentary silence.

  “Very,” Cy added.

  “We do what all PC brothers do, Phira. We patrol and maintain the balance.” Ferris’ tone was brusque but n
ot overly so. He was clearly the most serious of the three, but not without a sense of humor.

  “Well Muses and I have some stuff for you to patrol with,” I said, holding up the stack of photos as I approached them. I continued on to the makeshift kitchen island, consisting of a worn-out work table, and threw them down upon it. “These girls are missing. We need to find them.”

  Zale’s eyes went wide as he delicately spread the pictures out across the vast surface.

  “All of them? They’re all missing?” He turned his warm eyes to me and I nodded. “How could that happen without us knowing? Without someone reporting it sooner?”

  “Because someone glamoured the families of the victims and all but wiped their existence from the face of the Earth. No one reported it because, as far as anyone knew, there was nothing to report. Until the null boy contacted the PC, nobody knew something was going on.”

  “Holy Christ,” Cy muttered under his breath.

  “The power that would take…” Ferris started, his words trailing off.

  “There are few I know of capable of it.” Muses came to join us. “But even then, it was remarkable how difficult it was for me to pull any memories they had to the forefront. The magic is beyond strong. It’s like an iron vise on their minds.”

  “Alek, Nico, and TS are still there, doing their best to mitigate the fallout and make sure that no victim was overlooked.”

  “But we have reason to believe the victims have been brought here to the city to meet whatever fate awaited them. We must now hunt them down so we can ascertain who is behind this,” Muses said, his dark eyes darting up to meet mine. “And kill them.”

  “We’ll split up and start checking in with some of our seedier contacts,” Ferris said, scooping the photos up. “I’ll get these scanned first and distributed to each of us. We only need one face to be recognized. One lead to track this bastard down.”

  “Good idea,” I said. “But I don’t know how I can help. I don’t even know where the hell I am.”

  “You will come with me,” Muses announced, the familiar twinkle of delight in his eyes. “Perhaps your ghostly friend will show up again and point us in the right direction.”